Executive Speeches

Excerpts from remarks of Timothy S. Carey, president and chief executive officer of the New York Power Authority, at the 6th Annual Empire Energy & Environmental Exposition, Syracuse, New York.

September 25, 2006

It’s great to be here as we kick off what promises to be a very exciting and informative two-day event.  The New York Power Authority is proud to be a sponsor, and we hope you’ll visit our exhibit, which features some of our efforts to protect the environment, cut dependence on foreign oil and help show the way to sustainable development.

These are top priorities for our state and for our nation.  And—thanks to the leadership of Governor George Pataki—I believe that New York State, and the Power Authority, are well positioned to play key roles in addressing them.

The governor has established a strong foundation by moving aggressively to promote renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean transportation and to improve both our indoor and our outdoor air quality.

The benefits of bold new approaches such as the Renewable Portfolio Standard—requiring that at least 25 percent of the state’s electricity by 2013 come from renewable sources—and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that now encompasses seven states will be felt long after he leaves office.

With the Power Authority marking its 75th anniversary this year, I think it’s safe to say that no governor has made better use of the Authority’s resources than George Pataki.  I’m therefore confident that we’re primed to remain a vital force in meeting the energy and environmental challenges of our present and our future.

Those challenges are formidable.  We must combat global warming and other threats to our environment.  Reduce our vulnerability to supply decisions made in other countries.  And do so while meeting growing demand for the reliable, affordable power that’s essential to our economic growth.

Fortunately, these requirements need not be in conflict.  They can be complementary.  And our efforts to clean the air and replace foreign oil can themselves create important new economic opportunities. 

With that in mind, I’d like to tell you about what the Power Authority is doing these days in a couple of key areas. 

We have just passed the one-billion-dollar mark for total investment in energy efficiency and clean technology projects over the years at schools and other public facilities throughout New York State.  For this year alone, we’re on track to exceed $100 million in such investments.

NYPA typically provides up-front financing for an energy efficiency project and oversees all the work from energy audits through installation of the efficiency measures and the final quality checks.  But we rely on the private sector to supply the new lighting, motors, boilers and other energy efficient devices and to actually carry out the projects.

We’ve worked with more than 220 manufacturers, contractors and other vendors on energy efficiency projects.  So the economic benefits are clear—along with those directly related to energy and the environment.

To date, we’ve completed projects at about 2,400 facilities statewide—including a number here in Onondaga County. These projects lower peak demand for electricity by close to 200 megawatts.  They save the state’s taxpayers more than $95 million a year and cut annual oil use by more than 1.8 million barrels and greenhouse-gas emissions by over 750,000 tons. 

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished—not only statewide, but at our office building in White Plains. 

Thanks to various energy efficiency measures we completed in 2002, we were able to cut the building’s annual electricity use by 50 percent and to save ourselves about $450,000 a year. 

Now we’re going further. We’re reducing the building’s water consumption, improving its indoor air circulation and, in line with an Executive Order by Governor Pataki, using environmentally friendly cleaning products throughout the Power Authority of the State of New York.

We’re going for LEED certification—for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—from the U.S. Green Building Council.  And our overriding goal is to make the building as safe and healthful as we possibly can for our employees and those of our tenants.

This is a matter of considerable importance to me.  As the president and CEO of the Battery Park City Authority, I led the development of the Solaire—the first green high-rise residential building in America—which earned the coveted LEED Gold designation.

That building is 330,000 square feet.  It uses 35 percent less energy than a conventional residential building of its size—65 percent less at peak.  Five percent of its baseload energy comes from solar photovoltaics.

It uses 50 percent less water, has its own water treatment center on the premises and has planted roofs that keep it cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter.  Its cistern system mitigates runoff and—most important, like so many new commercial buildings—it has the best indoor air quality that we can attain with today’s technology.

I urge each of you with a hand in the construction of new buildings or the refurbishment of existing ones—residential or commercial—to help make New York State a leader in sustainable development and in marketing and implementing green technology.

Such technology takes many forms at the Power Authority.

We have, for example, installed 14 fuel cells and close to 25 rooftop solar photovoltaic projects at various locations around the state.  The fuel cells include a very efficient 250-kilowatt molten carbonate unit that began operation earlier this year at the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse and now supplies about 17 percent of the campus’ electricity.  That—along with other work we’ve done at ESF—reflects our great partnership with the college and President Neil Murphy, a relationship we value very highly.

We’re now looking ahead to our most ambitious fuel-cell project yet—four systems totaling nearly five megawatts of capacity at the new World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan.  This will be one of the largest fuel cell installations in the world.  We’ll also be involved in energy efficiency and renewable energy aspects of the program.

The urgent need to reduce reliance on imported oil and clean the air has sparked our involvement in two extremely promising programs that will make use of abundant domestic power sources—coal and hydroelectric power.

We’re a key participant in Governor Pataki’s Advanced Clean Coal Power Plant Initiative.  The goal is private-sector development of one or more projects that would use coal in a process that would significantly reduce emissions and would include the ability to capture—and sequester—carbon dioxide.

We’re part of a team of state agencies and authorities—led by the Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform—that has identified various potential “shovel-ready” sites in New York State for clean-coal facilities.  The Power Authority earlier this month coordinated the release of an RFP for up to 600 megawatts of capacity to be installed at these locations or elsewhere in the state.  We expect to announce the results in December.

The other program I mentioned is named “Hydropower to Hydrogen.”  It calls for using up to 700 kilowatts of hydroelectric power from our Niagara project to produce clean hydrogen that would in turn power vehicles running on fuel cells or modified internal combustion engines. 

The hydropower—and the process itself—are both emission free.  So the environment will benefit on all counts.

We intend to ask the NYPA trustees at their meeting tomorrow morning to approve up to $21 million in funding for this program—which could play a major role in speeding the creation of a vibrant hydrogen industry in New York State.

We’re considering the potential installation of one hydrogen vehicle fueling station at Niagara Falls State Park and another at a Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority site.

With these projects, we hope to demonstrate the commercial viability of the technology and to provide a model for similar facilities in other parts of the state.  The markets for the hydrogen could eventually extend to high-tech, job-producing businesses.

For now, the focus will be on the transportation sector—which accounts for more than two-thirds of this country’s oil consumption.  That’s in keeping with a number of other NYPA efforts.

Over time, we’ve helped to put more than 800 electric and hybrid-electric vehicles on the road in our own fleet and those of others—at last count, those vehicles had traveled a total of over five million miles.

Now—in addition to our work with hydrogen—we’re heavily involved in what we see as the next big thing in automotive transportation—plug-in hybrids.  

These vehicles will have larger batteries than conventional hybrids and will draw some of their electricity directly from the power grid.  They’ll be able to operate in either an all-electric or hybrid mode and will be cleaner and more fuel-efficient than standard hybrids. 

NYPA is helping to introduce DaimlerChrysler’s Sprinter van concept vehicle—a plug-in hybrid with an all-electric range of up to 20 miles.  

Our involvement with the Sprinter—like most of the other activities I’ve discussed this morning—demonstrates that energy, environmental and economic goals can be compatible.  I think these activities also demonstrate some of the special advantages that NYPA brings to New York State as we seek to meet those goals.

This effort must continue and intensify.  Working with our partners in government and the private sector, the Power Authority looks forward to being part of our energy and environmental solutions.