New York State Exceeding Target for Solar Energy Installations

We recently reported that New York State is three to five years behind its goal of drawing 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. That's bad news for co-op and condo boards and other building owners working to reduce their buildings' carbon emissions by switching from fossil fuel-powered to electric-powered building systems, such as heat pumps, electric stoves and even electric boilers.

Beginning this year, the city's Local Law 97 set carbon emission caps for 50,000 large buildings — and set fines for buildings that fail to meet their caps. Those caps grow progressively more stringent in future years.

Now on the heels of this bad news about the slow greening of the state's electric grid comes a ray of good news. The City reports that New York State has installed almost 5.7 gigawatts of solar power, just shy of its target of 6 gigawatts by 2025, according to the latest figures through April from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The 6 gigawatts of solar — enough to power over a million homes — are part of the state’s mandates under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which also requires the state to generate 70% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030.

New York is actually on track to exceed its solar goal, thanks to the projects in the pipeline: another 3.4 gigawatts are at “an advanced state of development,” according to NYSERDA. These are mostly small solar arrays on top of apartment buildings and homes, but they're beginning to add up.

“These projects are small, so they can be built quickly,” says Noah Ginsburg, executive director of the New York Solar Energy Industries Association. He adds that the economic conditions that derailed some larger solar and wind projects didn’t rock those smaller solar projects quite as much, and the permitting process for them is much less onerous.

Also boosting solar installations are programs, policies and incentives at the city, state and federal levels that have made installing solar more financially feasible. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed by President Biden in 2022, offers a 30% federal tax credit, plus other bonuses that Anika Wistar-Jones, senior director of Here Comes Solar at the nonprofit Solar One, called “incredibly generous.” In addition, New York State offers up-front rebates and other tax credits for solar projects. New York City property owners can also get a property tax abatement, thanks to a law the governor signed in September.

“You can get easily 70 to 90% of the system covered by some level of incentive, in most cases, which is amazing,” Wistar-Jones says. “Solar will pay for itself, without tax credits, in 10 years usually, or maybe less, and it lasts for 25 or more years.”

While these developments are encouraging, the state will need large infrastructure projects to complete the greening of the electric grid. These include large solar farms, wind farms off the coast of Long Island, and hydroelectric power that will soon be transferred from Canada.

Marguerite Wells, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, a renewable energy industry group, puts it in perspective: “Some people have a question in their mind: ‘Does it really make a difference if I sign up for community solar, or if I put panels on my roof or in my yard?’ Is that actually helping?' And the answer is, unequivocally, yes.”