RG&E and NYSEG are teaming up to help with the shortage of medical supplies in New York State. The energy service companies are donating more than 17,500 surgical masks and N95 respirators to the state. The masks and respirators will first be delivered to a state receiving center. That center will then distribute them to the facilities that have the most need for the equipment. The companies say they are also reinforcing the electrical systems at hospitals, nursing homes, food and critical distribution warehouses, and other critical facilities to the coronavirus response. Click here for story.

Workers charged with keeping the lights on in New York are now living on-site at upstate control centers to avoid the coronavirus. Four teams of control-room operators for the New York Independent System Operator moved into trailers at two sites this week, a voluntary sequestration that could last weeks. The highly skilled workers are essential to managing the flow of electricity on the grid and need to be kept isolated from potential infection, according to Richard Dewey, NYISO’s chief executive officer. It’s a sign of the escalating measures being taken to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure as the virus spreads. “It’s a pretty dramatic step,” Dewey said Thursday in an interview.

The results of NYSERDA’s most recent renewable energy request for proposals are in. 21 large-scale renewable projects totaling 1,278 MW in new capacity have been awarded, with 17 of those projects and 1,090 MW being solar. Image: Daroga Power Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed the project award recipients for the New York Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) most recent renewable energy request for proposals (RFP). In total, 21 large-scale solar, wind, and energy storage projects were awarded across upstate New York, totaling 1,278 MW in new capacity. Solar specifically accounted for 17 of the projects, representing 1,090 MW of the total capacity. Th

Zinc8 Energy Solutions, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has announced a deployment agreement, with New York-based private sector developer of CHP plants Digital Energy Corp., for the installation of a 100 kW Zinc-Air Battery Energy Storage System in Brooklyn, New York. Courtesy of Zinc8 Energy Solutions The installation is financially supported by NYSERDA (The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) which energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources. Collectively, NYSERDA’s efforts aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, accelerate economic growth, and reduce customer energy bills. The Zinc8 Energy Storage System will support and enhance the economics of

New York Truck Voucher Incentive Program Will Help Replace Older, Heavily Polluting Diesel Transit Buses with New All-Electric Transit Buses Funding for New York Power Authority to Install Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure for New All-Electric Transit Buses “Clean Transportation NY” Plan for Settlement Funds Invests Resources to Reduce Pollution and Bolster Clean Transportation Within Environmental Justice Areas Multi-Agency Effort Will Invest in All-Electric Transit Buses to Support State’s Goal to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions 40 Percent by 2030 and Economy-Wide Carbon Neutrality by 2050 The State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Rese

County, City and town officials on City Hall Steps to call for more funding support for green energy, green jobs. They say pace of climate change fight has to increase. CREDIT CHRIS BOLT/WAER NEWS A wide range of elected officials is pushing New York to invest more in renewable energy and green jobs.  The County, City and Town leaders agree the state is more progressive than many others.  But they want more help with local actions to effectively fight climate change. New York is already on the leading edge of green energy states with the recent Climate Leadership and Community Protection act.  More than 100 Representatives from counties, cities and towns have now signed a letter to ask Alban

Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.com When the New York State Fair opened last August, Gov. Andrew Cuomo made a surprise announcement: By 2023, he vowed, the fairgrounds would be completely free of fossil fuels and would run exclusively on renewable energy. Will that ever happen? That’s not clear. In the six months since the governor’s pledge, no details of the ambitious plan have emerged. The agency studying how such a massive shift could happen says it’s still in the study phase and that it’s too early to comment. But here’s what we know from talking to energy experts: While building enough solar panels to provide the fair’s electricity would be straightforward and effective, heating the fai

Photo: Will Waldron A reduced Common Council voted 8-1, with two members voting present, to approve a new law on Monday that will automatically enroll city residents in a program that relies more on renewable energy sources to power their homes. The program, known as Community Choice Aggregation, allows local governments to band together to negotiate prices from alternative energy sources through the Municipal Electric and Gas Alliance. The electricity and billing would still run through National Grid. “The idea is we’re going to save people money and move toward 100 percent renewable energy,” said Councilwoman Cathy Fahey, who sponsored the legislation. “The goal is to beat the price of the

The owner of The Marriott Downtown Syracuse Hotel wants the hotel to have as low of a carbon footprint as possible. That means changing out some of the lights. CREDIT JOHN SMITH / WAER NEWS The Marriott Downtown Syracuse Hotel is one of the first buildings in Upstate New York to use a special tool that helps with efficiency and reducing energy use. Owner Ed Riley says he’s trying to make the hotel as close to net zero, meaning the lowest carbon footprint as possible. He used the CPACE program to fund almost $10 million in cost-effective heating and cooling, as well as changes to LED lighting in 50 rooms and a restaurant. State Energy Authority Treasurer Jeff Pitkin explains CPACE allowed the

Broome County announced it has deployed three new buses using electric–hybrid technology produced by the BAE Systems plant in Endicott. The company last Thursday held a ribbon-cutting event to mark the occasion. Pictured, from left to right, are: Tanya Husick, executive director of transportation and parking services at Binghamton University; Gregory Kilmer, commissioner of the department of public transportation for Broome County; Steve Trichka, VP and general manager for power and propulsion solutions at BAE Systems; Broome County Executive Jason Garnar; and Stephen J. Flagg, Broome County Legislator for district 1. (Photo credit: BAE Systems) Broome County announced it has deployed three

While Google is the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, we’re also taking action on climate change by minimizing the amount of energy we need to use in the first place. For more than a decade, we’ve worked to make our data centers as energy efficient as possible. Today, a new paper in Science validated our efforts and those of other leaders in our industry. It found that efficiency improvements have kept energy usage almost flat across the globe’s data centers—even as demand for cloud computing has skyrocketed. The new study shows that while the amount of computing done in data centers increased by about 550 percent between 2010 and 2018, the amount of energy consumed by