Roundtable: Richard Kauffman

Q: In February, regulators at the New York Public Service Commission outlined a strategy for the state to begin implementing the governor’s Reforming the Energy Vision plan, whereby utilities will begin building clean and renewable distributed energy platforms across the state. This includes projects in lower-income communities intended to promote energy efficiency. How will these initiatives benefit low-income New Yorkers?

RK: As part of the coming changes in the energy market, New York is targeting the needs of low- to moderate-income families to ensure that they receive greater access to affordable, cleaner and more resilient energy choices. Until now, low- to moderate-income families who want to go green would struggle to find ways to buy solar panels or make their homes more energy efficient. As part of the governor’s energy vision, utilities are encouraged to partner with community groups to assist low- and moderate-income families, most notably by directly investing in the development of renewable resources and other distributed resource projects to benefit these customers.

Utilities and third-party energy providers will also work with community groups to target local system needs and enhance participation of low- and moderate-income customers through innovative initiatives such as Community Choice Aggregation and community net metering, which are designed to give communities greater control over their local energy decisions. These initiatives also offer new ways for these customers—many of whom are renters or have rooftops ill-suited for solar—to access the growing renewable energy market.

It is also important to note that utility and third-party efforts will be complemented by a strong New York State Energy Research and Development Authority focus on low-and moderate-income customers, which includes an emphasis on providing home energy efficiency services to low-income households and removing financial and other barriers to building energy-efficient affordable housing.

Combined, these regulatory and programmatic steps will put low-and moderate-income energy needs at the front and center of the REV future. The response to these initiatives has been terrific, with low-income community advocates applauding these groundbreaking steps.

Q: Is there a timeline on when we’ll start to see results?

RK: Regarding next steps, details on these new programs will be finalized later this year. Meanwhile, the PSC’s consumer advocate continues to work with low-income advocates, utilities and other interested stakeholders as part of the ongoing development of REV.

Q: What’s next for the REV plan?

RK: Significant energy infrastructure and business model changes related to REV are already in the works. In July, utilities, working with innovative technology companies and others, will unveil cutting-edge demonstration projects that will be used to test new designs and services for the utility of the future. These demo projects, an important step toward implementing REV policy changes, are an opportunity for the utilities to partner with third parties in new kinds of business relationships that expand the market for new energy solutions. Today, utilities do not have an economic incentive to support many technologies that can deliver tremendous value to customers, such as solar, energy storage, demand management and energy efficiency. Demonstration projects will test new business models that provide revenue streams outside of the traditional rate base to motivate the utility to proactively support third-party providers of these kinds of technologies.

These partnerships will result in increased access to distributed energy resources at a lower cost for customers. The demonstrations will also inform the regulatory proceeding itself, so we get the rules right to ensure the projects and business relationships can be first of their kind, rather than one of a kind. In addition to the demonstration projects, utilities are hard at work developing REV implementation plans, due in December.