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Heat Pump Rate Design

To achieve widespread adoption of heat pumps, it’s imperative to ensure that households switching from gas to heat pumps don’t see their bills go up. Fortunately there’s a solution! Currently, utilities are overcharging heat pump customers for the poles and wires that deliver electricity. Dedicated heat pump rates, like those already offered by Con Edison, can solve this.

Our esteemed speakers include Juan-Pablo Velez, Executive Director of Switchbox, Magdalen Sullivan, Attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Jessica Azulay, Executive Director at AGREE.

The webinar covers a new report commissioned by AGREE and Earthjustice on heat pump rates. The report can be accessed at this link: https://www.switch.box/nyhprates

Study Two-Pager: https://renewableheatnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/switchbox_nyhprates_onepager.pdf

The teach-in includes an overview of the NY heat pump design working group’s plan to call on the NY Public Service Commission to take action on electric rate design in the “Grid of the Future” docket to ensure that electric heating customers are not overpaying for electricity and to help drive heat pump adoption across the state.

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Battery Energy Storage Systems [BESS] in New Paltz and Neighboring Communities

There’s over 5 BESS projects being considered in Ulster County and the greater Hudson Valley region. Watch and hear from Dr. Jefferey Seidman, Vassar College, and Dan Murray, Energy Safety Consultant, and retired Chief in Charge of HazMat at FDNY; they will discuss how BESS systems work, why they’re needed, and what they mean for our communities.

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NYS Energy Plan – What’s in it, What’s Not, How You Can Help Shape It!

New Yorkers for Clean Power and esteemed speakers to learn more about the draft State Energy Plan, what’s in it, what’s missing, and how to take action before the October 6th deadline. Our panelists will address key highlights and recommendations for the building, power and transportation sectors respectively.

Our speakers:
Josh Berman, Senior Attorney of Sierra Club Environmental Law Program
Marguerite Wells, Executive Director of Alliance for Clean Energy New York
Jaqi Cohen, Director of Climate and Equity Policy Tri-State Transportation Campaign

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Your Voice Matters: Help Make the Clean Air (& Climate!) Initiative Happen

In this virtual teach-in we address how the Clean Air Initiative can ensure the CLCPA’s environmental justice and greenhouse gas reduction goals are backed by enforceable regulations with mandatory emission limits on New York’s top-emitting sectors, buildings and transportation. We walk you through how to use New York’s official public comment tool to weigh in on the recently proposed Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule, which requires corporate polluters to tell us what they are dumping into our air (really important as EPA has signaled that it will end this requirement at the federal level)

Speakers:

Julie Tighe, President NYLCV & NYLCVEF

Eric Walker, Energy Justice Senior Policy Manager, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Moderated by Betta Broad, Campaign Director, New Yorkers for Clean Power & Association for Energy Affordability

We dive into:

The latest with NY’s cap-and-invest program, now called the Clean Air Initiative and why it’s our best path to regulate and phase out emissions from buildings and transportation.

The health and economic benefits of cap-and-invest + the $1 billion Sustainable Future Fund

How to show up for upcoming public hearings, submit comments, and help push for the reporting rule that would mandate fossil fuel providers to report their GHG impacts, and call for the full release of regulations to actually cap GHG and copollutant emissions.

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Targeted Electrification in New York

New Yorkers are paying the price for outdated gas infrastructure. But there’s a better way. In this teach-in we dig into a new report from Switchbox that compares the cost of replacing leak-prone gas pipelines to the cost of fully electrifying the buildings those pipes serve.

The findings? Targeted electrification can save ratepayers billions—even when accounting for full electrification costs. We explored the report’s insights and how the NY HEAT Act can make these smarter investments possible.

Speakers:
Jessica Azulay – Executive Director, Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE)
Juan-Pablo Velez – Executive Director, Switchbox

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Energy Affordability

Too many New Yorkers cannot afford their utility and heating bills, and the problem is only getting worse. This briefing will lay out the problem, identify some of the root causes, and highlight key policy solutions that will help lower energy costs now and into the future.

Laurie Wheelock – Executive Director, Public Utility Law Project (PULP)
Annie Carforo – Climate Justice Campaigns Manager, WE ACT for Environmental Justice
Allison Considine – Senior Campaign & Communications Manager, Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC)

Visit our Teach In Archive for more: https://nyforcleanpower.org/teach-in-archive/

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The GAP Fund: Bridging the Equity Gap in Home Energy Efficiency

Join New Yorkers for Clean Power and the NY Energy Democracy Alliance for an interactive teach-in on the Green Affordable Pre-Electrification Fund, legislation that will help create a pathway to home energy upgrades for low and moderate income homes.

Our panelists include: Assemblymember Anna Kelles and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, the lead sponsors of this crucial legislation, Jasmine Graham, Executive Director and Mid-Hudson Energy Transition, Avni Pravin, Deputy Director at the Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE), Matt Dennis, heat pump and weatherization sales at Halco Energy, and Annie Carforo of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

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“The False Solutions Jeopardizing NY’s Climate Progress”

New York has set an ambitious climate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but false solutions threaten to derail progress. In this teach-in, we will examine three problematic solutions: so-called “renewable natural gas,” hydrogen blending for buildings, and carbon capture and storage, all of which could impede real climate action.

Missed this one? Find the recording here along with the presenters slides:

Take Action:

Sign up to go to Albany withttps://youtu.be/Wp9keIS_eroh Renewable Heat Now on Wednesday, January 29th: https://actionnetwork.org/events/renewable-heat-now-albany-rally-and-lobby-day

 

Guest Speakers:

● Hillary Aidun, Earthjustice

● Erin Murphy, Environmental Defense Fund

● Carolyn Raffensperger, The Science and Environmental Health Network

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Hillary Aidun, Senior Associate Attorney Earthjustice A senior associate attorney in the Northeast Regional Office. Hillary works to advance environmental justice in the northeast region and advocates for meaningful and equitable implementation of New York’s climate law in state court and before administrative agencies. Before joining Earthjustice Hillary was a fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, where she worked on expanding renewable energy resources, challenging federal regulatory rollbacks, and tracking New York State climate law.

Erin Murphy, Senior Attorney, Energy Markets & Utility Regulation Areas of expertise: Natural gas and electricity market design, natural gas policy, utility regulation. Erin represents EDF in regulatory proceedings involving the design of wholesale and retail natural gas markets, seeking to facilitate the clean energy transformation. She advocates before state public utility commissions for gas supply planning mechanisms to prevent unneeded long-term investments in gas infrastructure, and for utility adoption of programs to reduce methane emissions from gas distribution networks. Erin also advocates before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for new and better ways to facilitate renewable energy integration and harmonize the wholesale natural gas and electricity markets.

Carolyn Raffensperger, Executive Director Environmental Health Network. While working as an archaeologist in the desert Southwest of the U.S., she was enchanted by the beauty of the landscape and horrified at the environmental threats posed by dams, mining and toxic waste disposal. She left archaeology to work for the Sierra Club in Illinois. The desire to protect the rivers, prairie and desert led her to law school. Her graduate school training in archaeology and her law school education provides the tools Carolyn needs to serve her clients—the future generations of all species.

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9.25.24 “Climate Week NYC Event: Greening New York’s Grid by 2030”

New York’s Climate Law stated we should reach 70% renewable energy by 2030, and we always knew this would be a difficult task. New York underwent a massive shift to renewable energy, and despite tremendous progress, there were still many roadblocks that kept projects from reaching construction and operation. We heard from experts on why we needed to dig in on our commitment to the transition and what policies we needed to implement to get us there. We focused on successes and lessons learned over the last four years and laid out specific ways the public could support these policies. Every megawatt of clean, renewable energy that came online and served New York’s power grid was a win for New Yorkers, and we needed to do everything we could to deploy as many renewables as possible by 2030.

In our three-part program, we began with a keynote presentation on the efforts made by our elected officials and the renewable energy industry to build projects in an expedited, yet responsible manner, followed by presentations that focused on how distributed energy (residential and community solar, and battery storage) would play an important part in our transition. Our main panel discussion focused on why this transition should be a top priority in New York, with an emphasis on environmental justice and the economic and health benefits of our renewable transition. At the end of the program, a light lunch was served.

Here is the recording of the event, check out our Facebook album, and check out the Presenters’ slide from the renewable energy deep dive segment:

Take Action

During the event we discussed the importance of New Yorkers across the state doing their part in helping New York reach its renewable energy goals. One easy way to get involved is by taking action today:

Text “GREEN GRID” to 52886 or click here to urge Governor Kathy Hochul to take these next steps in progressing NYs clean energy future.

Speakers included:

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