Power player
Assembly energy chief takes on the grid
By JIM GORDON
New York State could begin solving its energy problems
immediately through conservation programs so ratepayers
spend less for energy while being more comfortable
in their businesses and homes, said the new chairman
of the state Assembly Energy Committee. Kevin Cahill,
a Democrat whose 101st Assembly district encompasses
Kingston and Rhinebeck, said with rising costs, possible
energy shortages and increasingly serious implications
of climate change, the state needs to move quickly
to avert economic and environmental troubles.
Cahill said new sources of energy are required in a
mix of both conventional and renewable sources. “What
we should be doing is diversifying, our energy supply”
he said of the state’s energy portfolio. He said New
York is already more diversified than most states,
but he lamented the lack of an official state energy
plan.
“I have a mantra and that is, we need a comprehensive
state energy plan and everything else follows,” said
Cahill. He said the state Legislature this year appropriated
$2 million for the plan. “If we had a plan we would
have a framework to discuss what to do.”
He said the state’s current ad-hoc system discourages
private investments in the state, because companies
are unlikely to risk millions or billions of dollars
on building power plants without knowing how the state
plans to manage the power being supplied. “If we have
a comprehensive plan, responsible investors will come.”
The state has not built enough new power supply sources
in recent decades to meet projected demand, and Cahill
said the free market had in effect failed New Yorkers.
Citing 24 pending applications for new power plants
filed in the last decade in the state that never materialized
because they were connected to the defunct energy company
Enron, he said, “When it disappeared, so did their
likely financing.”
Currently New York has six regional utilities that
maintain the natural gas and electricity infrastructure
but are not generating any power of their own. Instead
they purchase power at an open market on a daily basis
under the aegis of the New York Independent System
Operator (ISO) a nonprofit corporation set up for the
purpose in year 2000, when New York state dismantled
its 100-year-old system of regional regulated monopolies
that produced and distributed the state’s power.
Five of New York’s former utilities are still investor-owned
energy companies and one, Long Island Power Authority,
is a nonprofit municipal utility that in 1995 replaced
the Long Island Lighting Company. But LIPA also does
not produce its own power. Cahill said two influential
state Assembly members are introducing measures to
re-regulate the state’s energy supply and perhaps reunite
supply and transmission of energy, but he did not say
whether he supported the idea.
Cahill strongly supports the idea of allowing businesses
to do “net metering,” that is to install a solar energy
grid or wind power array on their rooftops or properties
and sell power to the utility grid, thus rolling their
own meters backward. This is potentially a source that
would produce maximum power during peak summer hours
when it is most needed and thus eliminate, or at least
delay, the need for a traditional large power facility.
But Cahill said the price paid by utilities for the
power needs to reflect their costs of maintaining the
infrastructure that moves the power. And while there
is an appropriation of about $6.5 million in the state
budget to develop solar energy, with significant money
earmarked for The Solar Energy Consortium centered
in Kingston, he said the state must subsidize solar
and other renewable energy resources for the foreseeable
future to develop them as practical, cost-effective
supply options.
Cahill said the idea that energy conservation means
sacrifice is wrong. “We can actually improve our lifestyle
with energy conservation, while saving money and conserving
energy.”
Cahill said the state in effect has no choice but to
start conservation programs. He said under a best-case
scenario it takes six years to bring a conventional
power plant on line, but noted that the state energy
ISO had estimated that the lower Hudson Valley, New
York City and Long Island could begin suffering power
shortages in about five years, because while some sections
of the state have energy surpluses, those areas are
looking at rising use and no new sources. He said that
prospect is another argument for net metering on commercial
buildings.
Cahill was appointed to the energy chairman post in
January as was his counterpart George Maziarz, chairman
of the Senate Energy committee, shortly before Gov.
David Paterson took office. The new leadership has
an opportunity to stoke the state’s economy and set
a global example of wise energy policy, Cahill said,
which will provide jobs and reduce the threat of global
climate change. “Unless we do something to reduce (greenhouse
gases), we will destroy the way of life we treasure.”
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