From flooding to heat waves to a growing reliability gap between energy demand and generation, New Yorkers are living in a world that our fossil-fueled, profit-driven energy system has created. Instead of continuing to wait for market-driven solutions to transform our power system, the City of New York can begin to wrest itself from the grasp of insufficient market-driven solutions and lead the country by establishing a public renewable energy developer to deliver affordability, stability, and climate leadership in a time of overlapping crises. 

This report proposes a city-level public renewables developer that would take on these challenges together. Building on a time-tested model of public development, PowerNYC would be a financially self-sustaining engine of decarbonization to deliver clean energy projects like distributed battery storage, distributed solar, and thermal energy networks at no upfront cost to New Yorkers.

Considering batteries alone, our research shows that deploying an initial 200 MW of distributed batteries via PowerNYC could save New York City’s Con Edison ratepayers at least $170 million annually by lowering capacity market costs and distribution costs. Over time, its development mandate could expand to other clean energy and grid infrastructure needed to support decarbonization and affordability. 

NYC does not lack financially viable sites for clean energy projects, thousands of which are scattered across schools, hospitals, public buildings, and other locations. But many of these potential projects remain unbuilt because existing market conditions incentivize some projects while leaving others consistently underserved, particularly community-scale projects with high transaction costs, and projects that require coordination across institutions and sites to unlock benefits at scale. PowerNYC would address these barriers to meeting urgently necessary decarbonization goals—while delivering affordability to New Yorkers and providing a model for cities across the country.