TESTIMONY
Sanna Barakat on New York City's Solar and Battery Storage Initiatives
0:07:21
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18 min
Sanna Barakat, Deputy Commissioner of Energy Management at DCAS, testifies on New York City's efforts to increase solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage capacity.
- Barakat highlights significant progress in solar energy capacity, from less than 1 megawatt on municipal buildings in 2014 to over 24 megawatts across 155 properties.
- She addresses the city's initial goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and the expansion of solar capacity to meet this target.
- Barakat outlines the challenges faced in reaching the 100 megawatt solar capacity goal by 2025 due to various factors, including COVID-19 impacts and budget constraints.
- She details legislation related to solar and battery storage, emphasizing the importance of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and concerns over setting infeasible targets.
- The testimony also covers efforts to increase citywide battery storage capacity, a crucial aspect for grid reliability as the city transitions from fossil fuels.
Sanna Barakat
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Good afternoon.
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I want to first wish Cheer Genero the best and speedy recovery.
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Good afternoon, again, acting chair nurse and members of the committee.
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My name is Sanna Barakat, and I am the New York City chief, the Carbonization Officer and the Deputy Commissioner of Energy Management and the department of city wide administrative services, commonly known as Dicus.
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I am joined today by Stephen Caputo, assistant commissioner for operations at Decast Energy Management Elijah Hutchinson, executive director of the mayor's office of climate environmental justice known as MOCEJ.
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Gidya Weiner, policy adviser for clean energy at MOCEJ, and Carlene McLaughlin, Director of Logistative Affairs at the Department of Environmental Protection.
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Thank you for the opportunity to test Fi on the city's effort to install solar photovoltaic systems, commonly known as solar PV and battery storage capacity.
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Solar PV and battery storage are vital components in the city's F to move away from fossil fuel generated electricity, and we have made tremendous progress to increase solar and battery storage capacity in the city, both in the public and private spheres.
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10 years ago, in recognition that climate change represented the most pressing existential threat to New York City's quality of life.
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The city city goal to reduce the wide greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, and at the time we came the largest city in the world to commit to that target.
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1 of the major policies established by the administration at that time achieve the 80 by 50 goal was to expand solar capacity on municipal building rooftops to 100 mega watts by 2025.
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Prior to setting the 100 megawatt target in 2014, the city had less than 1 megawatt of solar power installed on municipal buildings.
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Since then, we have grown our capacity exponentially and are now considered an industry leader.
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By 2022, we installed 16 point 7 Megawatt of solar capacity, representing a nearly 40% increase from the prior 2 years.
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We have since expanded our solar capacity even further by another 44% To date, the city led by Decas has installed over 24 Megawatt of solar capacity across 100 and 55 municipal properties in all five bureaus.
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Notably, of the 24 Megawatt of solar currently installed.
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55% of this system systems are in the state designated disadvantaged communities known as the ACs.
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We are continuing to add megawatts at a rapid scale.
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Since decast last testified before this committee in December, we installed another one and a half megawatts based on our current pipeline, budget and staff capacity we expect to more than double our current capacity to approximately 50 Megawatt by 2025.
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If conditions remain the same, we expect to hit 70 megawatts by 2027 and 100 megawatts by 2030.
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These achievements were all made possible through the docked commitment of decast and our partner agencies to identify all viable city properties for solar.
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We are using every tool at our disposal to install solar systems, including capital investment as well as power purchase agreements known as PPAs.
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Our PPAs have allowed us to significantly increase the rate of our solar installations in a cost effect of manner.
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We are also committed to being good stewards of our city owned solar assets so that we can maximize system performance, greenhouse gas reductions, and energy cost saving while ensuring the longevity of system lifespan.
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We currently have a solar operations and maintenance contract with an MWA vendor to provide O and M services to a selection of sites with the highest operational and maintenance needs.
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We also recently released a solicitation for a comprehensive O and M contract to cover all city owned solar installations to ensure the city's investments and operating at full capacity and peak performance.
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In other words, we're not just focused on solar energy now, but we're focused on protecting these investment into the future.
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While the city's rapid scaling of solar capacity is nothing short of remarkable.
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We now know that 100 megawatt by 2025 is not feasible.
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I'd like to take this opportunity to explain some of the challenges we have faced and continue to face in our efforts to reach 100 megawatt of solar capacity.
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1st, as I mentioned previously, when the prior administrations that the ambitious 100 megawatts by 2025 goal, neither city government nor the private sector had any significant experience with large scale solar installation.
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There could be no pilot for such an undertaking.
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We jumped right in and the city worked with the electrical utilities and established established its solar installation program from the ground up.
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Procurement and contracting for solar at this scale did not have precedent, and it has taken time to develop the necessary procurements.
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Just as you were starting to scale up our program, COVID set the city's progress back by about 2 years, resulting in obstacles and delays that linger to this day as we are still dealing with a constrained supply chain as well as commodity and shipping cost increases and shipping delays.
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It is challenging to find viable site to install solar due to many municipal buildings, needing roof repairs or replacement, and the limited space in our dense urban environment.
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We are in a competitive job market, and it is a challenge to recruit any team staff to implement and maintain solar installations.
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And finally, as you all know, the city is facing extraordinary budget pressures that could hamper our progress in the coming years.
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However, this administration is working to overcome these challenges to continue the rapid growth of our solar program.
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This work includes decastaking OLED advantage of our design build authorization granted by the state in 2021.
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We are aggressively advancing design build contracts under this authority and are on track to release Dica's first design build solicitation for rooftop solar installation this spring.
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Getting access to a PPA issued by the New York Power Authority that will bring solar installation to over 6 60 owned buildings in Brooklyn And Queens, including schools and wastewater resource recovery facilities known as WRRFs.
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This agreement will add over 30 megawatt of solar capacity.
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The solar installation on the Woods Island WRRF will be the largest solar installation on a wastewater treatment plant anywhere in the world.
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The city of yes for carbon neutrality zoning amendment, which will significantly increase the available space for solar and battery storage in the city.
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I'd like to express my gratitude to the council for passing this important reform.
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We are also working to expand and sustain a green workforce in the city, including new energy specific civil service titles, offering professional development courses in renewable energy, and partnering with schools to develop educational programming centered around solar PV system installed unschooled roofs.
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Finally, the administration released plan NYC, getting sustainability done, and power up.
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The city's long term energy plan, which together lay out concrete steps the city will take to increase solar and battery storage in the city including creating a plan to repair priority city buildings roofs and identifying and assessing sites for battery storage.
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In addition to expanding our solar portfolio, we are also ramping up the Series battery storage capacity.
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Expanding that capacity is essential to ensuring the reliability and resilience of our grid.
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As the city transitions away from fossil fuels and increases its electricity use.
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Last year, the New York Independent System Operator NISO found that the New York City area could face a grid reliability deficit as large as 446 Megawatt beginning in summer 2025 due to a forecasted increase in peak energy demand and the unavailability of certain fossil fuel generators.
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To this end, decast and partner agencies have completed several battery storage installations and have even more in the pipeline.
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So far, the city has installed approximately 0 point 28 megawatt of battery storage on city properties, including 4 libraries, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Redhook Recreation Center, and 6 FDNY firehouses.
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Through our Napa partner, ship.
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We have 3 large scale projects in development at NYCDEP that will exponentially increase back tree capacity on city property, adding approximately 19 Megawatt of capacity.
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Spring Creek is 5 Megawatts, Words Island, 10 Megawatts, and Cadell in Westchester, which is 4 Megawatts.
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Finally, thanks to the passage of the city of Yes zoning amendment referenced earlier, we have 5 more megawatts worth of projects on school properties that can now move forward.
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While we are ramping up battery storage on city property, the city is also committed to catalyzing development of city wide battery storage on both public and private property.
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Dicus recently released a request for information to private developers seeking more information about their needs and what would enable them to develop more storage in the New York City.
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The city is also participating in the review of the New York State Energy Research And Development Authorities, NYSERDA Energy Storage Roadmap, which if approved will support a build out of 4.7 gigawatts of storage deployments in the state.
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Widening our lens beyond just city owned property.
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Our colleagues at the mayor's office of climate and environmental justice are doing its tremendous amount of work to catalyze storage and solar capacity city wide.
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The city set a goal to install 500 megawatts of battery storage capacity city wide by 2025, and we already have 448 megawatts of solar installed the white.
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The cost to install solar PV in New York City has decreased significantly in recent years.
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Making it viable in more locations.
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MOCEJ has and will continue to advocate that incentives be tailored to accommodate New York City's unique dense urban environment and see that a fair share of state and federal funds supporting solar and development reach New Yorkers.
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For example, last legislation session, the City of the state bill that would extend and expand the solar and storage property tax abatement, which creates improve pathways for all New Yorkers to access the benefit of renewable energy.
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To keep pace with this increased funding.
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MOCEJ works closely with the sustainable CUNY Ombudsman program to ensure private developers have access to technical support throughout the permitting process.
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I would like now to turn to the legislation being considered today.
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Entro number 353 by council member nurse would require decast in coordination with MOCEJ to complete the installation of 100 megawatts of solar PV systems on the roofs of city owned buildings by the end of 2025 and 150 megawatts on the roofs of city owned buildings and other properties by the end of 2030.
0:21:39
This bill would also prohibit the use of power purchase agreements in satisfying the solar PV system targets.
0:21:48
The administration support the spirit of this bill and is committed to setting ambitious targets for solar PV installation on viable city buildings and other properties.
0:22:00
However, we want to work with the council to establish mandates that are both ambitious and achievable.
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We also want to ensure that all tools remain available to us to deliver solar PV project in as quick, efficient, and cost effective manner as possible.
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Including PPAs.
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PPAs are effective project delivery vehicles that have helped decast scale up our solar installations.
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Losing the ability to use them to achieve our solar installation mandate would severely hamper our ability to meet the mandates in this bill.
0:22:42
Entral number 354 by capsule member nurse with required decast in coordination with MOCEJ to develop a plan to achieve at least 300 Megawatt of storage on city owned lots by the end of 2030 and 400 megawatts by the end of 2030 5.
0:23:02
Once again, the administration supports the spirit of this bill and is committed to reaching ambitious levels of battery storage installation unviable city owned property.
0:23:13
However, the megawatt targets set in the bill are infeasible given how early we are in battery storage expansion citywide and the physical and operational constraints with battery storage.
0:23:27
We have a lot yet to learn and believe it would be premature to set a battery storage target at this early juncture.
0:23:36
Intro number 129 by council member, Brennan, with mandates the decast install all solar canopies and electric vehicle charging equipment at each city controlled parking lot.
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We welcome a discussion on the parameters of a pilot program to determine if solar canopies might indeed be cause of active.
0:24:01
Today, the city has 1 solar canopy with charging in place.
0:24:07
From a pilot, we would seek to understand the relationship between the cost of a canopy and the value to the city produced by such Among other items, the cost of a canopy must consider total cost per canopy installed staff and time required per install, the required maintenance and repair work overhead, and the varying warranties and expect a useful life for different parts of canopies that would impact costs.
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Last sleep, enter number 347, also by council member nurse, with exempt solar installations from any fees in connection with an application for a street crane permit for such installations.
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The administration would like to discuss this bill with the council further to better understand the intent.
0:25:03
In general, the city has not seen any indication that crane fees are an impediment to the installation of solar PV system on private property.
0:25:13
Further, fees serve an important an important purpose for the city in ensuring it can recoup cost for its services, and the administration would not want to set a precedent of waiving such fees.
0:25:28
We appreciate the support you have shown for our work and we look forward to continuing our partnership with the council in expanding the city's solar and battery storage capacity.
0:25:40
I am happy to answer any questions the committee has.