100 percent back

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Good morning and welcome to the weekly Monday edition of the New York & New Jersey Energy newsletter. We'll take a look at the week ahead and look back on what you may have missed last week.
100 PERCENT BACK — POLITICO's Ry Rivard: Gov. Phil Murphy is making an end-of-term push to turn his 100 percent clean energy pledge into law before he leaves office early next year, and a leading environmental ally has a new plan to help sell it.
It's been two years since Sen. Bob Smith, the Middlesex County Democrat who leads the Senate's environment and energy committee, began circulating such a bill that, at least on paper, would allow the state to claim it gets all of its power from zero-carbon sources by 2035. A new version has been floating around in recent weeks and the term-limited Democratic governor is pushing to get over the finish line in the year-end lame duck legislative session.
'We feel this is the right moment in history for this legislation,' Murphy's top climate adviser, Eric Miller, said in an interview.
The contours of the law remain similar to previous drafts, but new language is designed to make the law more flexible, increase in-state generation and ensure that by 2045 generation is 'clean firm,' a term that didn't appear in the last posted version of the bill and means power that is both emission-free and available on demand.
That could help assuage unions that worried past versions would lead to out-of-state clean energy construction and it could help supporters pitch the law as a response to power prices that are climbing because of a regional supply-demand crunch.
As part of a push to get it over the finish line, the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters has done polling that suggests it can sell a 100 percent plan, with a top line number showing about 60 percent of the electorate agrees that the state should transition to air pollution-free energy sources.
The group's polling, done by Global Strategy Group in late May and early June, looked at 600 likely voters statewide and 800 likely voters in battleground legislative districts and will help inform environmentalists in coming months.
'What this poll shows is what we know in our gut, that there is overwhelming, broad support for clean energy by 2035,' said Ed Potosnak, the head of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters.
GRID WARNING SIGNS: The late June heatwave that enveloped a swath of the country strained New York's grid — requiring it to rely on emergency imports from neighboring regions as some fossil fuel power plants unexpectedly shut off. The New York Independent System Operator has been warning for years that the aging fossil fuel fleet, retirements of some units and slow buildout of new resources threatens reliability. 'For years we've been saying the system is changing … and we don't want to become like a Texas or California,' said Kevin Lanahan, NYISO's top spokesperson. 'What we just experienced looks a lot like what we've been warning against.'
Behind-the-meter solar — rooftop and distributed solar that shows up simply as reduced demand on the system — contributed to meeting demand at high levels but began to drop off as the sun dipped lower. Wind also contributed significantly during the heat wave, which is not always the case on hot summer days, Lanahan said. But it dropped off as temperatures and demand for electricity rose. The sweltering heat caused load to peak during the heatwave around 6 p.m. on June 24 at 31,857 megawatts. That's slightly higher than the forecasted summer peak NYISO expected in its summer readiness assessment. The all-time summer peak was in July 2013 at 33,956 MWs. Lanahan said that if solar, wind and demand response resources hadn't been available, the June heatwave would've been at a historic peak. 'The behind-the-meter solar masked the load in effect,' he said. 'What if you don't have the solar in the next one? What if you don't have the wind in the next one?'
The system was most strained in the evening on June 24, when the grid operator declared a 'major emergency' as neighboring regions cut scheduled exports to New York as they also grappled with high demand. 'The heat dome spread across New England, the Northeast and large parts of the Midwest, so everybody was scrambling,' Lanahan said. About 1,000 megawatts of fossil fuel units were also not available. 'The age of these units showed, and we did have some of them trip offline,' he said. NYISO made emergency energy purchases from neighboring grids to fill the gap and keep operating reserves — an essential cushion to keep the system running smoothly — at acceptable levels. The emergency state was declared at 6:13 p.m. and ended at 7:58 p.m., according to an initial report on the event.
More detailed findings and 'lessons learned' are being evaluated by the NYISO. A report will be made to federal regulators, as well. — Marie J. French
BPU RA — The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is holding a technical conference on Tuesday to discuss resource adequacy. The conference follows two reports in 2021 and 2023 and comes weeks ahead of a September regional conference organized by governors from PJM states.
BPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy said the goal is to look at getting as much capacity as the state can get at the lowest price. It comes amid legislative pushes to restructure the state's utilities, build small modular nuclear reactors, study leaving PJM and to keep data centers from hogging grid power.
'I think things have changed pretty drastically in the last couple of years when it comes to load projections,' Guhl-Sadovy said. The technical conference 'has to inform all of our policy decisions.'
Expect speakers from Brattle Group, PJM, PSE&G, the Nuclear Energy Institute, NRDC and more. — Ry Rivard
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Here's what we're watching this week:
TUESDAY— The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is holding a technical conference on Tuesday to discuss resource adequacy, 9:30 a.m., Room 115 of the Education Building, The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ 08618 — and online.
AROUND NEW YORK
— How faulty electrical equipment caused a subway explosion last year.
— 'You Gotta Believe the IBX Is Coming.'
Around New Jersey
— It wasn't a windmill: 'Whale killed off Jersey Shore after bashing boat, throwing passenger into water'
— Op-ed: 'Investing in N.J. cooling centers is a matter of public good and justice'
What you may have missed
SIERRA CLUB'S MAGA ALIGNMENT — When Taylor McFarland, the New Jersey Sierra Club's conservation manager, heard Cranbury officials were looking to seize a 21-acre farm to build housing, 'It was just like a gut punch.' The Sierra Club sided with some in the MAGA movement to oppose the town's eminent domain move against the farm, known as Andy's Farm, which would make way for 130 units of affordable housing.
TRENTON WATER ON THE BRINK — POLITICO's Ry Rivard: New Jersey's capital city continues to be served by a water system 'on the brink of catastrophic failure,' the state's top environmental regulator said in a letter urging Trenton's mayor and city council to act faster to find a fix. A new DEP website documents some of the problems.
R.I.P. WIND LEASES — POLITICO's Kelsey Tamborrino: The Interior Department said Wednesday it is formally rescinding all designated wind energy areas on the U.S. outer continental shelf where the federal government could hold offshore wind lease auctions. Those areas spanned the Gulf of Mexico — which the Trump administration has renamed Gulf of America — as well as the Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon and the central Atlantic.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN — POLITICO's Zach Colman and Alex Guillén: EPA's efforts to dismantle the endangerment finding mark a major victory for conservatives' decades-long campaign to block the federal government from using landmark environmental laws to tackle the pollution driving climate change.
BPU x PSC — New Jersey's ratepayer advocate is urging the Garden State to follow New York's lead and look at killing a major offshore wind transmission project. Last month, as Marie reported, the New York Public Service Commission abandoned a transmission project intended to support offshore wind in the Empire State. Citing 'commonalities' between the two states, the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel said in a filing that his state's Board of Public Utilities should 'take similar steps to ensure that New Jersey ratepayers do not bear the unjustifiable risk.'
PAY-SSAIC — Occidental Chemical Corp., known as OxyChem, filed an appeal that looks to upend the $150 million deal approved late last year that attempted to settle the federal government's claims against scores of companies accused of contaminating the Passaic River.