Press Releases

07/17/2023

Avangrid’s New York Companies File Action Plan to Advance State Climate Goals

Avangrid’s New York Companies File Action Plan to Advance State Climate Goals

NYSEG and RG&E will play a fundamental role in ushering in New York state’s clean energy future

ORANGE, Conn. — July 17, 2023 — Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a member of the Iberdrola Group, announced today that its New York subsidiaries, New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E), have filed their 2023 Distributed System Implementation Plan (DSIP) with the New York State Public Service Commission. This plan presents the companies’ strategy and framework for supporting New York state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) and advancing clean energy solutions for customers. 

“Climate change is an existential threat,” said Pedro Azagra, Avangrid CEO. “Avangrid and its family of companies will play a fundamental role in the clean energy transition by integrating more renewable energy into the grid and electrifying sectors like transportation and heating. This plan lays a flexible foundation that will allow us to continue providing reliable and resilient power to our customers across the state as the New York electric grid becomes cleaner.”
New York’s CLCPA is among the most ambitious climate laws in the nation and requires New York to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030. It also calls for 70% of the state’s electricity to be produced by renewable sources by 2030 and adding 10,000 MW of solar capacity and 9,000 MW of offshore wind capacity by 2035. As one of the country’s leading sustainable energy companies, Avangrid has ambitious clean energy goals that directly align with the CLPCA. These include reaching scopes 1 and 2 carbon neutrality by 2030, ahead of most other major U.S. utilities, and reaching 16.9 GW emissions-free installed capacity by 2030. 

“We’re very proud to be a key partner in supporting and enabling New York’s clean energy goals by building the grid of the future today,” said Patricia Nilsen, NYSEG and RG&E President and CEO. “Previously, our DSIPs have focused on testing emerging technologies and capabilities. Now, we’re using the findings from these tests to begin to implement our vision. Since our previous DSIP filing, we’ve begun our smart meter and grid automation deployments, which will help us better serve our customers and monitor and control our system. This next phase continues our investments in these key areas and beyond. We look forward to continuing to meet the challenges before us to build a greener tomorrow for the communities we serve.”
NYSEG and RG&E’s 2023 DSIP focuses on building a foundational platform for the energy transition and elaborates on continued investments in several key areas, including smart meter deployment, grid automation, energy storage, electric vehicles (EVs), clean heat and building electrification and integrated system planning and distribution grid operations.

Smart Meters 

NYSEG and RG&E began deploying smart meters late last year across New York. These meter upgrades are equipped with safe and secure two-way communication that will enable customers to understand their energy use down to the hour and receive bills based on actual use monthly. Smart meters also help the companies reduce response times to outages with automated outage detection and status. This strategic investment will allow NYSEG and RG&E to provide customers with additional tools to understand and manage energy use, while controlling their costs.

Grid Automation 

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of weather events, making grid resiliency critical for maintaining safe, reliable electricity service for customers and communities. NYSEG and RG&E will continue to invest in grid automation by installing automated equipment, such as sensors or reclosers, that can be operated remotely and can feed critical data between grid devices and directly back to NYSEG and RG&E. This will improve visibility into and control of the network, allowing the companies to better address outages as well as integrate new clean energy resources.

Energy Storage 

Energy storage, whether connected to the grid or located on customer premises, has the potential to lower energy costs by providing short term back-up power to smooth out demand profiles. In addition, a battery’s ability to store and shift the use of intermittent renewable generation from sources like wind and solar means that energy storage can also help meet New York’s clean energy goals without sacrificing reliability. NYSEG and RG&E are working to incorporate energy storage into integrated system planning functions, non-wire alternatives procurements, interconnection processes and grid operations.

Electric Vehicles (EV) 

Electrification of the transportation sector will be a major contributor to greenhouse gas reductions and a clean economy. New York has set a goal of 850,000 zero-emission vehicles by 2025. NYSEG and RG&E are supporting this goal by offering programs to incentivize third parties to install more EV chargers, which will help reduce range anxiety for drivers. Additionally, the companies are working to ensure electricity is being used as efficiently as possible by exploring how to provide incentives on when EV chargers are being used to better manage peak use of the grid. NYSEG and RG&E are also leading by example with fleet EV adoption, supporting Avangrid’s broader commitment to deploy a 60% clean energy fleet by 2030. 

Clean Heat and Building Electrification 

The building sector is the largest emissions source in New York, accounting for 32% of emissions. NYSEG and RG&E are supporting the state’s Clean Heat Program to expand the use of heat pumps to reduce emissions associated with heating buildings. Last year, NYSEG and RG&E helped customers adopt more than 4,000 new energy-efficient heat pumps across its service areas.

Integrated System Planning and Enhanced Grid Operations 

With dramatic and transformative changes occurring in the electric grid, utilities need to plan and operate their system differently. This will require a higher level of granular data and visibility at the grid edge. NYSEG and RG&E’s Grid Model Enhancement Project is improving the companies’ data models to better analyze, plan and forecast electric distribution system needs as the number of distributed energy resources (DER), such as wind or solar, rapidly increase. In addition, NYSEG and RG&E’s Energy Control Center will need real time data to monitor distribution system operations to maintain customer reliability and help the companies improve integration of DERs.  

To view NYSEG and RG&E’s DSIP filing, visit dps.ny.gov.