Businesses asked to urge passage of Energize New York

The New York Power Authority president pressed Long Island business leaders Tuesday to lobby Assembly members to approve the Energize New York program.

NYPA president and chief executive Richard Kessel urged members of the Long Island Business Council to act immediately. "The legislature may be getting out as early as this weekend, for the rest of the year," said Kessel, who spoke at the Molloy College Sustainability Institute in East Farmingdale. "To attract and retain businesses we need a good energy program. If they leave Albany there will be no energy program. We need to act within the next couple of days."

The proposed Energize New York program passed in the Senate on Monday, and it has to be reviewed and voted on by the Assembly. The program would offer qualifying businesses and institutions low-cost hydropower in areas such as Long Island.

It would expand on the Power for Jobs program, which was the largest economic development program for energy in the country, helping over 500 businesses allocate cheaper power, according to Kessel. That program expired earlier this month.

Unlike the former program, which only offered one-year contracts, Energize New York will offer seven-year contracts for stable-priced power below market rates.

The legislation would improve the efficiency and affordability of energy services on Long Island while creating thousands of jobs for Long Islanders, according to Kessel. "Energy is extremely important to businesses and one of the biggest challenges to Long Island is the cost of energy," Kessel said.

NYPA has many projects in the works that will affect Long Island businesses, including those involving offshore wind power on the South Shore, solar power and the importing of more hydropower from Canada. NYPA is researching the installation of a transmission line that would import more than 2,000 megawatts of hydropower.

"We have a thruway for cars, we need a thruway for electricity," Kessel said. The line would run from Canada through upper and central New York, through Manhattan and then under water to Long Island.