East Hampton Town is in the process of adopting a Renewable Energy Roadmap to continue its work toward reaching its goal for the past decade of freeing the town from the use of fossil fuels.
In 2014, East Hampton set a goal to power the entire community’s electric consumption with renewable energy by 2020, and to have all of its other energy needs like heating and transportation met with renewable energy by 2030.
Pictured Above: Then-Councilwoman (Now Town Supervisor) Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, former Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, Deputy Supervisor Sylvia Overby, Christopher Thomas from AES Distributed Energy and Councilman Jeffrey Bragman at the 2019 launch of the Accabonac Solar Farm at the site of the town’s former brush dump. Consultants preparing a new Renewable Energy Roadmap for the town are looking toward future local generation of power similar to this project. (Town of East Hampton photo)
The town “didn’t quite make the goals,” East Hampton Energy Sustainability Committee member Lena Tabori told the town board at a July 18 hearing on the Renewable Energy Roadmap, but “it drove us to realize we needed a roadmap from outside the community that took a look at what the needs of the community were. The goal was to make the 2030 goals more realistic and more possible.”
The town declared a Climate Emergency in 2021, a resolution declaring that it would make all its decisions through the lens of the impact on the climate, update its Climate Action Plan, first drafted in 2015, and educate and engage the community in the effort.
The Renewable Energy Roadmap, commissioned by the town in 2022, was completed by GDS Associates, Inc. Engineers & Consultants in 2023.
It included an assessment of the town’s current greenhouse gas emissions and the best ways forward for reducing those energy needs and transitioning them to renewable sources.
The consultants found that emissions in the town currently stand at 550,00 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year, 51 percent of which comes from electricity usage, 30 percent of which comes from fossil fuels used in buildings, and 18 percent of which is from fossil fuels in vehicles.
“The town’s heating and internal combustion engine fossil fuel usage will be the town’s most significant challenge by 2030, assuming the grid is 70 percent renewable by then,” according to the report. “There will need to be a large amount of renewable energy produced by or within the town to reach the 100 percent renewable energy goals.”
The plan recommends aggressively pursuing community solar installation, a ground-mounted solar installation adjacent to the East Hampton Airport, and incentivizing community adoption of renewable technology, including residential solar installations, electric vehicles and building electrification.
But, the plan cautions, incentivizing the goals “might carry a price tag of around $5 billion to fully incentivize the actual electrification of the entire community of nearly 30,000 people. It instead recommends the town “spend a reasonable amount on the most cost-effective policies or programs and use carbon offsets to address the remainder.”
Key to that cost-effective incentive program will be Community Choice Aggregation, which enables existing PSEG-Long Island customers to choose to buy their energy from a renewable source. Both Southampton and East Hampton are exploring CCA programs, which are currently experiencing regulatory issues with the New York State Public Service Commission. The plan also recommends the town provide incentives for heat pumps and electric vehicles.
Funding sources for these programs could include community benefit payments from the South Fork Wind Farm totaling $435,000 per year for the next 25 years, and state grants.
The full text of the plan is online at ehamptonny.gov/1900/Renewable-Energy-Roadmap.
“The single biggest thing we can do is adopt Community Choice Aggregation,” said Energy Sustainability Committee member Krae Van Sickle at the hearing. “The current snag with the Public Service Commission is trying to be worked out.”
He added that local renewable energy production will not only help the town achieve its renewable energy goals, but it will also help the town become more resilient.
“The U.S. is dramatically unprepared for a catastrophic grid failure,” he said. “Communities should be prepared to manage a 30 to 45-day grid failure, with local, point-of-use energy systems.”
He added that local energy production would greatly benefit Montauk, where residents often need to shelter in place during storms.
“I have a terrible fear that, with the growing consequences of climate change, we’re going to spend more of our capital adapting and overcoming the consequences rather than mitigating to prevent future consequences,” said Ms. Tabori. “This particular roadmap addresses that very specifically. Change is not convenient, but we are a coastal community and are extremely susceptible to the changes climate change is going to bring us.”
A second public hearing on the Renewable Energy Roadmap is expected shortly. Stay tuned to eastendbeacon.com for more details. — BHY
