In Brief: Has New York Built Its Last Fossil Fuel Plant?

In Brief articles are short explanations of important topics, agencies, and questions affecting the Empire State and its citizens. Do you have a question we can answer? Ask it here.

One key report says there’s no need to go back to the drawing board just yet. The state has enough power plants operating or being built to meet demand over the next 10 years, according to the New York Independent System Operator, the nonprofit that operates the state’s grid. That finding takes into account new data centers, cryptocurrency facilities, and other “large loads” seeking to connect to the grid.

The report, which is still being finalized this month, suggests that New York’s energy outlook hasn’t changed that much since AI entered the equation. The main challenge of the state’s energy transition this decade is catching up on building renewables and the transmission lines needed to move clean power around the state, while shifting more everyday energy use from fossil fuels to electricity.

“That era [of building gas plants] is ideally long over at this point in New York,” said Liz Moran, Northeast policy advocate at the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice. She pointed to the state’s 2021 denial of a permit to Danskammer, a power company that wanted to build a new gas plant on the Hudson River in Newburgh. Regulators argued at the time that the proposed plant would “perpetuate a reliance on fossil fuels” in violation of the state’s climate law.

After a lengthy appeal, Danskammer withdrew its permit application this past summer, in what many advocates saw as the nail in the coffin for new fossil fuel plants in New York.

Asked for comment, state environmental regulators declined to say whether they’ve fully ruled out future gas plants. A spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Conservation said the agency reviews permit applications case by case “to ensure the agency’s decisions are protective of public health and the environment.”

Some in the power industry say it’s too early to count new gas plants out just yet.

“I think that there definitely could be new gas generation in the future,” said Richard Bratton, director of market policy and regulatory affairs at the trade group Independent Power Producers of New York (IPPNY). “They would definitely have to be permitted outside of disadvantaged communities and have access to the large loads. But … it should still be an option.”

State energy regulators are still defining what kinds of non-renewable energy will count as “zero emissions” under the climate law’s 2040 mandate. IPPNY has petitioned for plants that use carbon capture technologies to be included on that list — which could allow for new fossil gas. The group also wants “renewable natural gas” plants, which would burn methane gas captured from farming and landfills, to be allowed.