There’s a way for Hudson Valley residents to get off Central Hudson and get on a reliable, affordable energy system that runs on renewables: by opting into a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program run by their municipality. And the Build Public Renewables Act can help make that happen.

CCAs allow municipalities to purchase power from an alternative supplier on behalf of residents and businesses while still receiving transmission and distribution service from existing private utilities. It makes the municipality the default provider, and allows customers to opt-out. However, despite success in many of our municipalities like New Paltz, Saugerties, Red Hook, and Marbletown, CCAs’ future has become uncertain after the supplier suddenly terminated its contract last year.

That supplier was Columbia Utilities, a privately owned Energy Service Company (ESCO). ESCOs are middleman businesses that purchase energy wholesale and resell with a profit markup. They have a track record of promising clean energy at great rates, only to jack up prices later. In this case, Columbia Utilities was ordered to cease operations because of a failure to meet creditworthiness. All in all, ESCOs are unreliable partners when it comes to solving our energy crisis. This is where the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), a state bill that is on the brink of passing, and which I’ve been advocating for since before I ran for office, comes in.

BPRA, in a gist, is a state bill that empowers and instructs the New York Power Authority (NYPA) — the country’s largest publicly-owned energy provider — to lead the state’s generation of renewable energy, and to do so in a democratic and just way that protects vulnerable communities and strengthens labor protections. The private sector, despite being given a clear priority and a host of incentives, has failed to make significant progress in meeting our renewable goals.

Currently, NYPA is prohibited from building new electricity generation projects. BPRA lifts this prohibition and creates a rigorous and thoughtful path for NYPA to fill the gap coming from the private sector. It positions NYPA to create large amounts of renewable energy, which the bill explicitly says can be sold at wholesale cost to CCAs if there’s plenty to go around:

“Any remaining excess renewable energy produced by the authority shall be sold to residential end-use customers or CCA's at the wholesale cost.”

Since NYPA’s energy would be built from renewable sources, and since public power doesn’t have a profit motive, its wholesale cost would be cheaper and considerably more stable compared to fracked gas, a highly volatile source that Central Hudson currently relies on.

And NYPA is uniquely positioned to alleviate the energy and climate crises. As a public entity that generates revenues from energy sales, doesn’t pay state taxes, and has a gold standard bond rating, it has access to low-cost capital that private companies don’t. Not only does NYPA not need any taxpayer money to build, it is so lucrative that the Governor is proposing a $20 million transfer from NYPA’s funds to the state’s General Fund.

The governor, in a step of which the significance cannot be understated, has also included a barebones version of BPRA in her executive budget. However, her “BPRA Lite” leaves out critical parts of the bill, without which NYPA’s full potential will not be unleashed.

How much CCAs benefit from BPRA comes down to how much new renewable energy NYPA builds. The bill instructs it to build the maximum amount possible, all the while remaining fiscally sound, and protecting workers and vulnerable communities. Solar, wind, geothermal, and energy storage projects can be sited all over the state, bringing thousands of new jobs per year, and Ulster and Dutchess counties can both play a role in housing energy storage projects.

Municipalities in our district are currently scrambling to find a reliable supplier for their CCAs. If we pass BPRA, and if the Governor champions its full vision so that NYPA builds excess renewable energy to sell to CCAs at the wholesale rate, every single municipality in our Assembly District could easily opt into a CCA program and get ratepayers off Central Hudson. We would still pay Central Hudson the delivery rate, but we can make the volatile supply rates a thing of the past.

When NYPA was founded in 1931 as a counterweight to the power of private utilities, speculative electric utility holding companies, and “waterpower barrons,” its public power drove down electricity costs for New Yorkers across the state. It’s time to build upon the transformative legacy of NYPA and pass the Build Public Renewables Act through this year’s budget.

Sarahana Shrestha

103rd District Assemblymember

Esopus