Pilot projects in Haverstraw and Buffalo will test whether utilities can deliver clean heat instead of fossil fuels, all while retaining jobs.
Haverstraw, New York, will get one of the state’s first utility thermal energy networks. (Alexisrael, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
For the past four years, the UpgradeNY coalition of clean energy, environmental, and labor groups has been pushing New York regulators to approve projects that could switch entire neighborhoods from fossil gas to clean electric heating — and to do it without undermining fossil gas utility jobs and investments.
The vision? Replace gas pipelines with networks that tap into latent, otherwise wasted sources of heat, from both underground and industrial or municipal systems, to dramatically improve the efficiency and sustainability of electric heat pumps.
Last week, the coalition won a long-delayed — if partial — victory. The New York Public Service Commission approved two of these utility thermal energy network (UTEN) plans, committing a combined $111.5 million to build what will be the second and third such projects of their kind in the country.
But the commission rejected nine other UTEN projects, including several high-profile ones in New York City and others in upstate communities.
Still, UpgradeNY is hoping that the two approved projects — one in the Hudson Valley town of Haverstraw and the other in the city of Buffalo — will demonstrate that utility thermal energy networks are worth pursuing on a wider scale.
“ From a workers’ rights and environmental justice standpoint, it’s a win-win,” said Theodore Moore, executive director of The Alliance for a Greater New York ( ALIGN ), an environmental justice group that’s part of the UpgradeNY coalition.
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