The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is launching a new effort to bring more large-scale renewable energy projects online. 

NYSERDA President and CEO Doreen Harris says the authority’s latest solicitation comes during “significant federal headwinds” for renewable energy projects.

WAMC’s Lucas Willard spoke with Harris about how New York is seeking to streamline a decision-making process that can often take years.

Well, certainly when we think about large scale clean energy projects, they’re really no different than any other infrastructure project in which you are looking for various factors to come together to really realize the outcome of construction, and, in my case, operation. So, these are projects that that really do to your point, they take many years to come, from concept through to construction and operation, and along the way, they need to be permitted. They need to be, in our case, interconnected into the grid. They need to find financing for the project, and they need communities that can support them. And ultimately, they need the materials necessary to be constructed, and so for all those reasons, there’s a lot of pieces that both have to occur before construction, but also to come together in a rational sequence to be able to realize a project at the end of the day.

So, what’s different about this new round of solicitations than previous requests from NYSERDA? What is the organization seeking to streamline in this latest process?

Well, we have been working, literally, I just did the math, it’s over 20 years we’ve been conducting procurements of this nature, or really moving forward with procurements to help move renewable projects forward. And the world has certainly shifted in those years, and we, too, have really adjusted our procurements in a manner that’s reflective of the reality of the day. For the reasons that I just described, time is perhaps the biggest challenge that we face, not just from the perspective of all the pieces that have to come together to realize projects, but also the changes that can occur in that time. So, NYSERDA takes bids from companies to build their projects and operate them. We don’t actually pay them until they are operating. So, what that means is, between the time that the company bids to us and the time our contract commences, sometimes could be 3, 4, 5, 6 years. And so, what that means is there are changes that occur in that time that may or may not affect the project’s viability. And so, while we look for the projects that are the most viable in our procurements, we recognize, certainly, as we’ve seen even in the last couple of years, global issues like inflation, like interest rate changes, like supply chain constraints, etc. Those can impact projects just as permitting or any other action could. So, this RFP is reflective of the realities of the day. We’re always seeking to balance the very real imperative of ratepayer protections, of affordability, as certainly, the governor has made clear. The balance is one that we always need to be looking at in order to get the best bids we possibly can. And I think really in learning over those decades, that’s the balance that this RFP strikes.

What’s the current status of federal funding for land-based clean energy projects in New York? What is sort of the bird’s eye view picture of the federal funding landscape that New York was slated or is receiving?

Certainly, federal tax credits are one of the most significant reasons why we feel the timing for this RFP is so central. I had impressed upon you the imperative of affordability as a central aspect of how we move forward with these RFPs and there are tax credits that are going to be expiring, either have expired or will be expiring soon, that we believe we have a suite of projects in our state that can benefit from them. And for those reasons, it’s to our interest to move projects forward that can capture those tax credits because of the benefits that they would provide to consumers across our state, in some instances, up to 30% of the capital cost of the project. So, we’re moving to move these later stage projects forward, the projects that have all of these pieces lined up and can capture these tax credits for the benefit of New York consumers.