Have you looked at your electric bill recently?

For residents of the village of Lake Placid, a base monthly electric charge is $8, with a base price per kilowatt-hour (kwh) of 3.66 cents. If you’re outside the village and rely on National Grid (the de facto utility for much of the North Country), the base rates are more than twice as much. In cold hard numbers, a monthly energy bill with National Grid of $85.44 (what the average U.S. household uses) would be $40.88 in Lake Placid — for exactly the same service.

How can this be? Companies like National Grid are for-profit enterprises, loosely regulated by New York state but essentially having a monopoly on utilities for the regions they service. They prioritize keeping their shareholders happy, which they do at their customers’ expense: In 2023, the company’s New York operating profits amounted to over $1.1 billion.

Communities like Lake Placid, Plattsburgh and Tupper Lake do something different. They have a public utility, which for Lake Placid means purchasing energy from the publicly run New York Power Authority (NYPA) for residents to use. Unlike National Grid, municipalities like the village of Lake Placid and state-run authorities like NYPA are focused on balancing budgets rather than running up profits and therefore sell energy to customers at more equitable prices.

So how do all New York state residents get what Lake Placid has? Public Power NY, a coalition of political groups and environmental organizations from all over the state, is fighting for a statewide public utility — one run through NYPA, already the largest public utility in the country, that lowers power bills and, most importantly, does it all by using 100% renewable energy. We won big in 2023 with the passage of the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), which mandates that NYPA help New York meet its own climate goal of reaching 70% renewable energy by 2030. When the private sector fails, NYPA is instructed to build and operate enough renewable-energy sources to meet that 70% benchmark.

NYPA’s intervention is sorely needed according to a progress report put out by the state in June. New York is not scheduled to meet its 2030 goal, largely due to a sea of cancellations in private-sector projects. If you’ve seen the movie “Don’t Look Up,” it’s like watching billionaire Peter Isherwell’s rockets malfunction when entrusted as the sole plan to prevent a 5-kilometer asteroid from destroying the human race.

Fortunately, saner plans are still on the table in New York. Imagine a world where NYPA built more than 15 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 — that’s 12 million households powered by low-priced renewable energy and 25,000 green jobs, made available through training programs to current fossil-fuel workers and residents of economically disadvantaged communities. Unlike private utility companies, NYPA can fund its own projects through tax-free government bonds and access to funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, meaning all of this generating potential can be built without putting the financial burden on taxpayers or utility customers.

What kind of projects would NYPA choose to build and where? Consider the Indian Lake Hydropower Project — a plan that would bring between 3.2 and 5.7 million kwhs of renewable energy a year to the town of Indian Lake, simply by installing a hydropower generator in an existing dam. A for-profit plan to bring the dam online was scrapped in 2008, but the community-based Indian Lake Association (ILA) is keeping the dream of hydropower alive. This is exactly the kind of situation where NYPA should step in to fund and build a hydropower generator where the private sector has given up and coordinate with the town government to provide residents with low-cost, reliable green energy.

How many projects are there like this in the North Country? How many projects could there be? NYPA needs to be listening to communities and local organizations like the ILA throughout the state to build renewable projects where the public wants them. This is an effective way to circumnavigate the conflict between for-profit renewable-energy companies and local residents who fear their communities will be jeopardized by ill-placed solar fields and wind farms. An abundance of localized projects interconnected in a statewide power system will also make our grid more reliable, decreasing the likelihood of blackouts from downed power lines connecting distant sources of energy to small communities throughout the North Country.

Unfortunately, Gov. Kathy Hochul has resisted implementation of the BPRA every step of the way, from an unsuccessful attempt to water down the legislation’s union-backed labor protections to appointing Justin Driscoll, an opponent of the law, as NYPA’s CEO without the approval of the NYS legislature. It is likely that the governor and her appointees at NYPA will stall the legally mandated buildout of public renewables for as long as possible.

So what can we do? For starters, write a letter to your New York state representatives (https://actionnetwork.org/letters/governor-hochul-build-15-gw-of-public-renewables-for-a-green-new-york) demanding NYPA meets the state’s renewable goals. Then consider organizing a town hall in your area to spread the word about public power and brainstorm with your neighbors on projects that NYPA should be building. You can get resources for a town hall or find other ways to plug into the movement by emailing publicpowernorthcountry@gmail.com.

The planet can’t wait for profit-driven companies to solve the climate crisis and neither can our pocketbooks. Our future depends on clean, affordable and reliable public power.

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Sam Balzac grew up in Jay and graduated from Keene Central School before moving to New York City to pursue a career in the dramatic arts. He organizes with the Public Power NY coalition and the New York City Democratic Socialists of America.

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Sources

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Yates, Lauren. (2023, February 6). Lake Placid board to vote on first electric rate increase in 16 years. Adirondack Daily Enterprise. https://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/local-news/2023/02/lake-placid-board-to-vote-on-first-electric-rate-increase/

Service Rates. National Grid. https://www.nationalgridus.com/Upstate-NY-Home/Rates/Service-Rates

How Much Electricity Does an American Home Use? U.S. Energy Information Administration. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3

Full Year Results (2022/23). National Grid. https://www.nationalgrid.com/document/149571/download

Public Power NY. https://publicpowerny.org/

French, Marie J. (2024, July 2). New York likely to miss 70 percent renewable target. Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/02/new-york-likely-to-miss-70-percent-renewable-target-00166258

Way, Daniel. (2022, July 7). Once Upon a Dam. Adirondack Almanack. https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2022/07/once-upon-a-dam.html#more-197557

Indian Lake Association in the Adirondacks. https://ilaadk.org/

Harris, Lee. (2023, February 16). Hochul and Senate Clash on Public Power, With Utility Workers on Sidelines. New York Focus. https://nysfocus.com/2023/02/16/bpra-hochul-senate-labor-utility-workers/

Lewis, Rebecca C. (2023, June 9) Driscoll Down, but not out. City & State New York. https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2023/06/driscoll-down-not-out/387390/

Governor Hochul: Build 15 GW of Public Renewables for a Green New York!

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/governor-hochul-build-15-gw-of-public-renewables-for-a-green-new-york