The New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission (ORES) has granted final siting permits to the AES Corporation’s 125MW Sugar Maple solar-plus-storage project, planned in the towns of Croghan and Wilna in northern New York state.
Announced yesterday by the state’s Department of Public Service (DPS), the project will include a 20MW co-located battery energy storage system (BESS), although AES did not specify any of the technical details of either the project’s solar or storage component. The company noted that it would be connected to existing grid infrastructure at a new point of interconnection via 115kV lines.
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DPS says that the project’s design was changed in order to “reduce impact” following local consultation. These changes include a minimising of above ground power line construction to “preserve the aesthetic value of the area”, and “agricultural co-utilisation” has been proposed for a 622-acre area of the project, creating an opportunity to use agrivoltaics (agriPV) at the facility. This potential agriPV component could account for just under half of the project’s total 1,500-acre footprint.
ORES also awarded permits to two wind projects that will replace and expand upon existing wind projects that have reached the ends of their operational lives. These new projects will add 218MW of new wind capacity to the state
“These approvals reflect New York’s continued progress towards a cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable electric grid,” said Public Service Commission chair and department CEO Rory Christian. “ORES has demonstrated once again that a rigorous, transparent review process and timely permitting decisions can go hand in hand, delivering lasting benefits for communities and ratepayers across the state.”
With permits granted for these three projects, ORES has now granted permission for 35 utility-scale solar and wind projects in the state, with a combined capacity of over 5.1GW. This is an important milestone for a state that has historically targeted deployments in the distributed renewable energy sector; this week, the state’s senate passed the Accelerate Solar for Affordable Power (ASAP) Act, which aims to have 20GW of distributed energy capacity in operation in the state by 2035.
Last year, the state also launched its ninth request for proposals for new renewable energy projects, and projects developed through this programme are expected to deliver more than US$5 billion in clean energy investment, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
New York was one of the states named by Vote Solar executive director Sachu Constantine in an interview with PV Tech Premium earlier this year that have actively sought to incentivise renewable energy deployments, at a time where the Trump administration has withdrawn or scaled back much of the federal-level support for these projects.
