It’s the feel-good story of the week, should you don’t thoughts taking pleasure from others’ misfortunes. On the subject of the wind and photo voltaic power grifters, I don’t thoughts a bit taking pleasure from their troubles. [some emphasis, links added]
The previous couple of days have introduced the information that, apparently, the vast majority of the remaining wind and photo voltaic electrical energy initiatives nonetheless in improvement in New York State are below imminent menace of cancellation.
At this level, the main points are sketchy, and no person is attributing the information to any named supply so far as I can discover. Nonetheless, the story is sufficiently extensively reported from usually dependable sources that I’m prepared to provide it credit score.
The Albany Occasions-Union seems to have been the primary with the story in a bit from April 12 with the headline, “Clear power initiatives in NY on maintain as battle over prices escalates.”
The gist is that the builders of some two dozen “clear power” (wind and photo voltaic) initiatives in upstate New York have approached the State and demanded extra money above agreed-upon costs simply to proceed with beforehand contracted developments.
Except they get the extra funds, they’re threatening to stroll away from the initiatives.
Excerpt:
“Almost two dozen of New York’s clear power initiatives could also be scrapped as a result of they’re financially impractical, a potential end result that might exacerbate the state’s struggling efforts to fulfill growing energy calls for whereas additionally making certain the electrical grid turns into much less depending on fossil fuels.
“The stalled wind and photo voltaic initiatives would energy roughly 2 million properties, however the builders need to renegotiate state contracts to replicate tariffs and rising labor prices not factored in when their offers had been struck between 2023 and early 2025. With out extra income, the initiatives received’t be economically viable and can have to be canceled, in accordance with a commerce group representing them.”
The Occasions-Union piece doesn’t include an inventory of initiatives threatened with cancellation, nor the names of their builders in query.
Nevertheless, it does include this quote from one Deanna Cohen, recognized as a spokesperson for the New York State Vitality Analysis and Improvement Authority (NYSERDA):
“The authority ‘expects its builders to honor their commitments,’ spokeswoman Deanna Cohen stated. ‘The aggressive bidding course of is designed to guard shoppers and end in honest and cost-effective contracts.’ “
Corroborating the Occasions-Union story, here’s a piece from FingerLakes1.com yesterday. Excerpt:
“In response to Public Energy NY, builders are signaling they might stroll away from initiatives after the New York State Vitality Analysis and Improvement Authority declined to renegotiate contracts to account for increased prices tied to tariffs and inflation. … The potential cancellations may considerably impression New York’s renewable power pipeline at a time when the state is already behind tempo on targets established below the Local weather Management and Group Safety Act.”
Properly, NYSERDA, what are you going to do if the builders of most of your renewable power initiatives simply stroll away?
Readers right here with lengthy recollections could recall the almost equivalent saga that performed out from 2023 to 2025 involving New York’s grand schemes for offshore wind developments to exchange most of its fossil gasoline energy crops.
I coated this example in numerous items over that point interval, together with this one from April 17, 2025, that included an outline of the whole historical past.
The quick model is that starting in 2019, New York State entered into fixed-price contracts (within the vary of $80-90/MWh) with big-time builders (Equinor, Ørsted, and many others.) to develop 4+ gigawatts of offshore wind generators within the Atlantic Ocean; however in September 2023, all of the builders got here in and demanded huge value will increase and threatened to cancel.
The State (through NYSERDA) initially bluffed and blustered that it was going to carry the builders to their contracts. However after a number of months of that, NYSERDA caved and re-bid the contracts, ending in early 2024 with contracts with the identical builders at nearly-doubled costs within the vary of $150/MWh.
After which President Trump swept into workplace in January 2025 and blew the entire thing “out of the water,” as they are saying. (At the very least one of many offshore initiatives has since been revived below some type of deal between the Trump administration and Governor Hochul.)
Nevertheless, the remainder of the offshore wind initiatives look quite lifeless at this level.
So with regard to the upstate and onshore initiatives, we are actually on the place the place we had been in September 2023 with the offshore initiatives.
Does the State maintain any extra playing cards this time round? It might maintain even fewer playing cards this time, as a result of many of those upstate developments have doubtless certified for federal tax advantages that, in gentle of the One Massive Stunning Invoice, will now not be accessible to anybody who begins right now from scratch.
An alternative choice for New York, and by far the very best one, can be to take this chance to stroll away from the renewable power fantasy.
In any rebid of the on-shore wind contracts, the costs are prone to be double to triple the value that may very well be had from a brand-new pure gasoline plant.
And the ability from a pure gasoline plant can be dispatchable and dependable, as an alternative of the intermittent energy from wind generators or photo voltaic panels that’s by no means there when you actually need it. I don’t suppose that our Governor and bureaucrats are fairly able to go that route but, however they’re getting nearer with each passing day.
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