Eight years from now, New York City will be required to generate eight megawatts of power from solar energy. The Solar Energy Consortium (TSEC), a nonprofit based in Ulster County seeking to establish a solar energy cluster in New York state, will help it get there, in the meantime giving the mid-Hudson Valley a needed economic development boost.
Those are the plans for a new partnership announced Jan. 3 between TSEC and the Center for Sustainable Energy at City University of New York (CUNY). The arrangement creates a link between the upstate initiative to develop new, more efficient solar technologies and the potentially lucrative market of New York City.
The announcement was made at a press conference held at the Bronx Community College, where the Center for Sustainable Energy is based. Speakers included U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, a prime supporter of TSEC, who has been instrumental in obtaining several million dollars in federal funds for the initiative, Vincent Cozzolino, CEO of TSEC, and Iris Weinshall, CUNY”™s vice chancellor for facilities, construction planning and design.
“The partnership between TSEC and CUNY opens up a very big and critical door of opportunity for solar energy products and devices being researched and manufactured upstate to be used and become more mainstream in New York City,” Hinchey said.
Added Weinshall: “CUNY”™s researchers from several of our campuses will be part of the solution to creating a robust solar market in New York state. The goals of this consortium are just what New York needs to capture the power of sunlight, our greatest untapped resource, leading the way to energy independence, a healthier environment and increasing the number of green collar jobs.”
Frederick Schaffer, CUNY”™s senior vice chancellor for legal affairs and chair of the CUNY Economic Development Corp. (EDC), said that the EDC had partnered with the Center for Sustainable Energy to develop a business incubator. The collaboration with TSEC would be provide an additional springboard for the generation of solar businesses, he said.
Given that “all the major constituencies have agreed to bring New York City up to some percentage of solar-generated energy, this becomes the science project,” said Cozzolino. Furthermore, “this will create some opportunities given the unique solar systems that are needed. It”™ll help the market to be created. New York is going solar, and partnering with CUNY completes the deck of cards that includes the upstate universities already onboard.”
TSEC, which was launched last year, has established partnerships with five other colleges and universities in the state: SUNY Binghamton, Clarkson University, Cornell University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and SUNY New Paltz. Each is engaged in some type of solar energy research and development.
The consortium”™s mission to bring researchers and solar energy companies together to develop commercial applications for more efficient, affordable solar technologies has grown to embrace the entire state, with manufacturing possibly located in the northern and western regions of the state. But TSEC officials have said that a major advantage of being based in the mid-Hudson Valley is the proximity to New York City, which is one of 13 cities to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy”™s (DOE) Solar America Initiative. The goal of the Solar America program is to help accelerate the adoption of solar technology in urban locales.
According to Tria Case, executive director of the Center for Sustainable Energy, who also spoke at the press conference, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and utility provider Con Edison have committed to the goal of generating 8.1 megawatts of solar power by 2015, a significant increase over the current level of 1.9 MW. “It makes sense to reduce peak (electrical) demand using solar,” she said, noting that demand is greatest in the summer, when solar is most effective.
But she noted that achieving that target is no easy feat, given the “extensive power relays” required by Con Ed to ensure the power generated by the solar systems doesn”™t go back into the electrical grid. Net meters, which would enable the power to be sent back to the grid, aren”™t allowed in the state, except for residential photovoltaic systems of 10 kilowatts or less. Figuring in the cost of the power relays ups the cost of the photovoltaic systems, which is another challenge, Case said.
“We”™ve been addressing the policy issues and barriers, parallel to making sure we have the infrastructure and people available to put in the systems,” Case said. Launched in 2003 with the support of U.S. Representative Jose E. Serrano, D-Bronx, the Center for Sustainable Energy aims to promote the use of renewable and efficient energy technology in urban communities through education, training, research project facilitation and work force development, she said.
CUNY has signed on to the DOE”™s Million Solar Roofs initiative and has set a target of installing 500 solar roofs in New York City by 2010.
The CUNY system itself, which is comprised of 23 institutions collectively amounting to 23 million square feet of building space and 450,000 people, is striving to be a model: It has committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 30 percent and has signed on to the university challenge of Mayor Bloomberg”™s PlanNYC, which seeks environmental improvements and the reduction of the city”™s carbon emissions by 30 percent.
The partnership with TSEC was a way for all the players to join forces and “focus together on how to move this market, which is more effective than each of us moving alone,” said Case, who grew up in Poughkeepsie. “We bring the knowledge of how to bring this technology into the urban environment. We”™re also the key trainer of the workforce in New York City for PV installations,” with training sites located on three CUNY campuses.
