As New York Lags on Climate Goals, Some Dirty Plants May Stay Open Past Deadline

“Given the timeline for development of alternative solutions, it seems likely that some component of those peakers that are targeted for retirement [in 2025] would need to stay on,” said NYISO President Rich Dewey on a call with reporters last week.

Peaker plants keep the lights on when the grid is stressed, but at a high price. They release significantly more pollution per unit of energy they generate than their peers, including planet-warming carbon dioxide but also nitrogen oxides, which contribute to health conditions like asthma for those who live closest to the plants. There’s also a direct cost New Yorkers pay in their utility bills: Over the last decade, the state’s peaker plants have charged hundreds of millions of dollars per year to stand at the ready.

The plants’ outsized environmental impact put them in the crosshairs of advocates and regulators well before New York passed its climate law in summer 2019. That year, the Department of Environmental Conservation issued rules requiring the dirtiest peakers to either close or take steps to reduce pollution, with new controls taking effect this year and ratcheting up in 2025. Some plants have already started closing their dirtiest units in anticipation of limits that went into force this past May. Another batch of smokestacks is due to be retired over the next two years.

The likely delay in the retirement timeline reflects wider challenges to New York’s energy transition. NYISO blames the slower-than-expected buildout of renewables and, above all, transmission lines needed to bring clean energy into New York City. That’s in large part due to pandemic-related shocks to the global economy, including supply chain disruptions and inflation, according to a new report. Those woes have delayed projects including the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a major transmission line bringing Canadian hydropower to the city, which was originally due in 2025 but now isn’t expected until at least spring 2026.

NYISO has long warned that the state’s clean energy buildout is failing to keep up with plant closures. But the new report is its starkest warning yet that New York is falling short of promises to green its grid.

C. Lindsay Anderson, an energy specialist at Cornell University’s school of engineering, said it’s hard to avoid such gaps in an energy transition with so many moving parts.

“Everything has to move sort of in sync to make the plan work,” Anderson said. “Taking [peakers] offline is an important signal that we’re making progress. But with many other pieces of the plan having been delayed, it’s not surprising that we may need to delay this a little bit to let the other pieces catch up.”

The Department of Environmental Conservation said the peaker rule has been effective in reducing pollution, and that off ramps to ensure reliability are working as intended. (The pollution caps include exemptions for plants that regulators deem necessary to keep the lights on.)

“All New York City peaking units will be in compliance with the new regulations this month,” spokesperson Haley Viccaro said. A total of 37 older fossil fuel units at 14 plants will have been retired by this summer, while the DEC expects another nine generators to receive extensions on this year’s deadline for reliability reasons.

Another 26 units are scheduled to be taken offline in summer 2025, according to a recent NYISO assessment. The DEC did not directly address NYISO’s warning that some of those units may need to stay open longer — a finding the grid operator expects to confirm in its next quarterly assessment, due in July.