New York’s urban electric project aims to build more than 5,000 new homes
NEW YORK – The latest iteration of the US’s largest urban electric program is about to hit New York City, but residents say they are not yet ready to welcome the city’s biggest investment since it began more than 20 years ago.
Urban electric advocates say New York is on the cusp of the first of several such projects that will be part of a nationwide rollout of distributed energy resources that would power everything from the grid to city buildings.
The $100 billion, 20-year project aims, among other things, to bring down power demand and help residents save money on their electric bills.
Critics of the plan say it will not meet the ambitious goals set out by the Obama administration, which has repeatedly called for an urban electric grid to be built by 2025 and that New York will likely fail to meet the 2020 goals for generating 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050.
But the new federal program, which was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, is not designed to be a panacea for New York.
Its goals, the urban electric plan aims to do, are ambitious, it has no specific plan for getting there, and it will be built in part on government subsidies.
There are other ways to meet them, the Urban Electric Partnership, the advocacy group behind the plan, said in a statement.
It aims to reduce carbon emissions and reduce the citywide energy costs of $2.5 billion annually by 2035, compared with 2030.
“By 2035 we can achieve the goals of this plan and continue to reduce our carbon emissions while meeting the needs of New Yorkers,” the statement said.
While the $100-billion-plus program has attracted attention from lawmakers and city officials, it faces obstacles, including how it would be paid for.
A $1.6 billion loan guarantee, part of the $1 trillion stimulus package, has been a sticking point, as has the possibility of an electric vehicle tax.
For more, we turn to a different city, from a city that has already begun: Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, residents and elected officials say that their city is on track to become the first in the country to build and deploy a fully-electric city.
And the city has already gone ahead with a $2 billion investment in a new citywide power grid, known as the Los Angeles Electric Power Authority.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in January that his city will begin deploying the new grid by 2021, and that it will take five years to get to 50 percent of the citys energy needs met.
Los Angeles is a city of more than 50 million people, and has become the epicenter of the nation’s rapid growth in the past few years.
It is home to the most expensive housing in the world, but its electric grid is among the fastest-growing in the United States.
Electricity generated in Los Angeles during the past five years has exceeded the nation as a whole, according to the Losers of Greenhouse Gases report.
L.A.’s city council approved a $1 billion investment, and the mayor announced the city would begin deploying power to a citywide grid by 2019.
Garcetti also has pledged $2 million in incentives to the state to pay for the project, as well as to build about 20 new electric vehicles that will help cut emissions.
More than 70 percent of Los Angeles residents have access to some form of electric, according the Loser of Greenhouses report.
The city already has nearly 3,000 miles of electric transmission lines, and a second phase of the project will link up a portion of those lines with another.
The first phase of a $5 billion electric project in New York, known in some circles as a “citywide power” grid, is scheduled to begin installing the grid by the end of 2021.
New York City has committed to using the power generated in the state’s grid by 2030.
The goal of the new program is to install more than 3,400 new electric units by 2020.
To meet the goal, the state will offer $300 million in federal loans and grants for each new unit that the city can build.
As part of that loan, New York and other states will provide $2,000 grants to each electric utility to develop a program that will provide a small subsidy to help build the new units.
The state has also announced plans to extend the program to 30 percent of new electric projects that are approved, meaning that cities will be able to offer a $25 rebate for new units and up to $30 for older units.
So far, New Yorkers have been encouraged by the federal government to use their electricity for energy, but many fear that the federal subsidies will be phased out in a few years and that electric cars will become less popular.
California is the first state to install an