By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's electric grid will face supply shortfalls if the rate of retiring old fossil fired power plants continues to quickly outpace the addition of clean new energy supply at the same time demand rises, the state's grid operator said on Thursday.
New York has set a goal for 100 percent clean energy on its grid by 2040 to reduce carbon emissions and slow the progress of climate change. The effort that will require a wide roll-out of renewable energy and the axing of power plants fueled by fossil fuels like natural gas.
In the five years since New York set its clean energy targets, the state lost 5,207 megawatts of fossil-fired power supply versus gaining 2,256 megawatts of clean energy sources like wind and solar, the New York Independent System Operator said in its annual reliability report.
At the same time traditional supply shrinks, demand from energy-intensive data centers and manufacturing, along with the climate-driven electrification of cars and buildings, is on the rise.
New York has at least 10 very large power load projects, including data centers and semiconductor factories, expected to be up and running in the next two years, NYISO said. They include the Micron (NASDAQ:MU) NY Semiconductor plant, which will require 480 megawatts of capacity, or enough to power about 400,000 homes, the report said.
Increasing demand and shrinking power supply could pose a problem to New York's grid as early as this summer if the state faces prolonged heat waves, specifically temperatures of 95 degrees Fahrenheit lasting three days or more.
In the heat wave scenario, total grid supply would sit at about 34,500 megawatts and demand would rise to 33,300 MW, leaving the system well short of the 2,600 megawatts of operating reserves needed to stay reliable, NYISO said.
New York can deploy emergency power supply provided by so-called peaker plants, the grid operator said, but peakers are generally fired by fossil fuels and are expensive to run.
The grid operator said more investment in transmission and other elements of the state's electrical network, and streamlining the regulatory process to build that infrastructure, would be part of what is needed to avoid blackouts and rising power costs over the next decade.
(This story has been refiled to change the name from 'New York Independent Grid Operator' to 'New York Independent System Operator' in paragraph 3)