With record-breaking heat comes the possibility of record-breaking energy usage. But Rich Dewey, president and CEO of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), told Capital Tonight that the grid is resilient, and that adequate resources are in place to accommodate the kind of demand we have experienced this week. 

“We do tremendous planning to get ready for these types of events,” Dewey said of the extended heat wave. 

Dewey is more concerned about shrinking reliability margins. The extra energy supply that’s needed for certain peak days when things could go wrong, is shrinking. 

The issue was also highlighted in the NYISO’s 2024 Power Trends Report.

“(Reliability margins are) shrinking because, as driven by policy, there is a push to transition the grid away from the historic high-polluting, high-emitting fossil fuels system to a cleaner energy system,” Dewey said. “So, as we go through that transition, and we’re incentivizing new supply that’s cleaner, like wind and power and storage – and we’re also working to plan the timely retirements of some of the fossil fuel-based systems, what we’re seeing is retirements are outpacing the demand, the new demand.”

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which was passed in 2019, has committed New York state to an aggressive transition to renewables – 100% zero-emissions electricity by 2040. 

While the state has been slow to transition to renewables, it’s been quite effective at mounting energy-intensive economic development projects.

“It’s something that we’ve really got our eyes on and we’ve really got to plan carefully for the future,” Dewey said of energy intensive projects like Micron and cryptocurrency mining.