{"id":288919,"date":"2026-07-07T08:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288919\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T08:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:35:08","slug":"could-hydropower-hamper-nycs-building-decarbonization-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288919\/","title":{"rendered":"Could hydropower hamper NYC\u2019s building decarbonization law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story originally appeared in New York Focus<\/a>, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

When renewable energy credits hit the market<\/a> as soon as next month, New York City building owners will for the first time be able to support a clean energy project rather than cleaning up their own properties.<\/p>\n

Climate advocates and some city legislators are urging Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration to limit the use of credits to comply with Local Law 97, the landmark statute that requires owners of large buildings to ratchet down their emissions. Mamdani said he would do so on the campaign trail last year, but hasn\u2019t indicated his position since he took office.<\/p>\n

In June, the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a 339-mile transmission line, began delivering Canadian hydropower to New York City. Its abundant clean energy will be translated into the credits, known as RECs, that companies or organizations can buy from the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency, with the proceeds helping pay for the transmission line.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the advocates\u2019 concerns come in. The RECS are expected to cost significantly less<\/a> than the penalty for not complying with the city law, and some fear they will be used too liberally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to start by asking what\u2019s the risk here,\u201d said Chris Halfnight, CEO of the Urban Green Council, a nonprofit focused on decarbonizing buildings in New York City. \u201cWithout a reasonable limit, RECs could become a substitute for building upgrades rather than a complement to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

RECs can only be used to offset emissions from electricity use, not from on-site oil or gas usage. Still, they could reduce the incentive to make buildings more energy efficient through retrofits and upgrades. The Urban Green Council calculated<\/a> that as much as half of the emissions over the law\u2019s 2030 limits could be offset by RECs \u2014 including 85 percent of excess emissions from office properties.<\/p>\n

Asked at a mayoral forum last year, Mamdani said he would eliminate the use of RECs to offset emissions. He lambasted Mayor Eric Adams for slow-walking Local Law 97\u2019s implementation and deferring to the real estate lobby<\/a> in allowing the sale of RECs as a clean energy compliance option.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is cheaper for some New Yorkers to be out of compliance than in compliance,\u201d Mamdani said, in response to a question about RECs. \u201cThat is a ridiculous state of affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

As mayor, however, Mamdani has yet to publicly support any limit on the use of RECs to comply with the law. A bill<\/a> now pending before the City Council would limit the volume of emissions that can be offset by RECs to 10 percent of a building\u2019s emissions from electricity, but the mayor has not yet endorsed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we review Intro 159,\u201d said a City Hall spokesperson, referring to the bill, \u201cwe will continue to support those who are taking concrete steps to come into compliance with the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, the main sponsor of the bill, said she and her co-sponsors hope the mayor will sign on. \u201cIt does seem consistent with positions he advocated as both an assemblymember and a mayoral candidate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

De La Rosa said she introduced the bill to ensure the benefits of Local Law 97 flow to the city\u2019s residents, especially those in marginalized communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change is already affecting us,\u201d De La Rosa said. \u201cIn recent years, we\u2019ve seen major brush fires in my district. Communities of color and environmental justice communities are bearing the impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several climate organizations signed<\/a> a memo in support of De La Rosa\u2019s bill, and note that Mamdani could also enact an offset limit through rulemaking at the Department of Buildings.<\/p>\n

The department formalized the use of RECs as a compliance option in 2022, under then-Mayor Adams. \u201cEric Adams ripped a giant loophole into Local Law 97,\u201d said Pete Sikora, who directs climate advocacy at New York Communities for Change. Closing that loophole \u201cwould ensure energy efficiency investments that lead to thousands of jobs, millions of tons of air pollution reductions, and lower utility bills,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But not everyone sees the RECs as a handout to property owners. Because they provide revenue to energy developers, they can also spur energy investment, said Ben Furnas, a former top climate official in the Bill de Blasio administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think CHPE is a huge victory for Local Law 97 in a lot of ways,\u201d he said, since its RECs can \u201chelp catalyze a political coalition for a much lower emission grid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another alum of the de Blasio climate team, Daniel Zarrilli, said it would have been hard to fund the transmission line without it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCHPE actually getting built was far from guaranteed,\u201d Zarrilli said. \u201cIf part of the tradeoff was allowing some offsetting of electricity emissions, I think that was a worthwhile compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sale of RECS will help defray some of the cost of building and operating the transmission line, which otherwise will be absorbed by ratepayers across the state. In a statement, the Department of Buildings said purchasing RECs \u201ccuts down on pollution and supports a cleaner grid for our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York City itself has already committed<\/a> to buying a substantial portion of RECs. Utility customers will see their monthly bills rise by a few dollars per month to help pay for CHPE; the exact amount may vary slightly, depending how many RECs building owners buy.<\/p>\n

Most large buildings are already in compliance<\/a> with the law\u2019s earliest requirements. By the time stricter requirements take effect in 2030, RECs may well be more expensive. Their prices fluctuate each month \u2014 rising when power prices are low and decreasing when power prices are high. Starting in 2030, the law starts to treat New York City\u2019s electricity as much cleaner, anticipating the grid\u2019s continued shift towards carbon-free energy sources. At that point, building owners will have to buy twice the number of RECs to cover the same amount of emissions.<\/p>\n

Halfnight said the shifting calculus of REC prices could eventually help encourage building owners to actually lower their properties\u2019 emissions rather than relying on the offsets. In the meantime, he said, a cap on the RECs would provide a \u201cstraightforward fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese countervailing factors say \u2018OK, it\u2019s some risk, but it\u2019s not a five-alarm fire,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3337,16813,1922,102707,81,102163,9,24,56,63,65,64,110431,5298,82],"class_list":["post-288919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-building-owners","tag-carmen-de-la-rosa","tag-clean-energy","tag-de-la-rosa","tag-eric-adams","tag-local-law","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-renewable-energy-credits","tag-transmission-line","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}