ACE NY’s CAROL MURPHY
Brings a POWER-filled Message to HIA Energy Seminar

Carol Murphy

STORY BY MAUREEN TRAXLER

A nationally recognized expert on energy issues, Carol Murphy, Executive Director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACE NY), served as a panelist at the May 22 Hauppauge Industrial Association seminar, “Green is the New Red White & Blue.” Her message to the local business community was a call to build partnerships and continue commitment and investment in renewable energy. A Binghamton native now living in the Albany area, Murphy says, “For a long time, Grumman was king. Not so anymore, and the Island needs to do something to replace those jobs. Business should be looking at renewable energy as a new potential growth area.”

A member of New York State’s Renewable Energy Task Force established under the leadership of then Lt. Gov. David Paterson in June 2007, Murphy’s professional career spans two decades of service in the energy field, including state government, utilities, and the Independent Power Producers (a trade association representing independent generators). She was the first woman vice president of the New York Independent System Operator, which operates the state’s electric grid, and she served as its chief spokesperson during the 2003 Northeast blackout. She founded Trailhead Energy Advisors, an energy public affairs firm, before joining ACE NY.

“For most of my career, I’ve been the only woman in the room, but I have no problem dealing with the big boys,” says Murphy.
Reviewing New York’s energy picture for Networking® magazine recently, Murphy zeros in on the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, which mandates that by 2013, 25% of the state’s electric needs come from renewable energy sources. The Standard was taken one step further with the creation of the Renewable Energy Task Force, which was charged with identifying and recommending ways to expand the state’s use of renewable energy and alternative fuels.

“There’s no silver bullet to solving our energy needs and our energy crisis,” Murphy continues. “But, there’s a lot of silver buckshot, and that’s what we’re using, silver buckshot, to solve it.”

“The Task Force is working through the issues of how do we get to this 25% by 2013,” notes Murphy, who chairs the Central Generation subcommittee (wind, hydro, tidal power and biomass). On the other side of the energy coin, the Task Force is working on advancing methods to assist the state’s “15 by15” initiative, which requires reducing electricity consumption 15% below forecasted levels by 2015. The members are focusing on renewable fuels; energy efficiency; central generation (getting megawatts into the system); distributed generation (small-scale, local production, like solar and wind installations); and the creation of “green-collar” jobs. In February, the Task Force released its “roadmap” to significantly increase renewable energy generation in New York, and continues to refine their recommendations—a sort of “reality check,” says Murphy, to determine if the recommendations are realistic to achieve.

Powering up
Murphy notes that around the state renewable energy projects are underway, including 600 megawatts of wind energy currently online, approximately one-half of this year’s goal of 1,300 megawatts. The goal for solar power is to develop photovoltaic (PV) energy generation of 100 megawatts by 2011. “Most of New York’s megawatts of new power come from solar and wind technologies,” says Murphy, who sees Long Island as one of the state’s “hot beds” of the sustainable energy movement, in spite of its transmission challenges and the fact that it is an area where it’s difficult to get new energy facilities built.

“People on Long Island have been encouraged to conserve for a long time,” notes Murphy, adding that the Island also has an “active environmental voice in folks like Gordian Raacke [Executive Director of Renewable Energy Long Island, RELI] and Adrienne Esposito [Executive Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment].”

LIPA Request for Proposals
She points to the Long Island Power Authority’s recent request for proposals for companies to build and install solar systems throughout Long Island that would produce 50 megawatts of solar energy. The solar PV arrays will be installed on school buildings, commercial and municipal rooftops, along parking lots, atop landfills and at brownfield sites. According to LIPA, which would buy the power harnessed, the system would produce enough power to sustain 6,500 households and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20,000 tons.

In the area of hydro and tidal power, Murphy mentions the Downstate project in the East River off Roosevelt Island, where Verdant Power is constructing the world’s first grid-connected array of tidal turbines. The power produced from this underwater project is delivered to two end users on Roosevelt Island, a Gristede’s supermarket and a parking garage that have agreed to receive the electricity generated by the demo system.

It’s the economy!
Looking at the energy picture from an economic viewpoint, Murphy says, “New York has not only the natural resources—wind, sun, hydropower—but also the people, the educated workforce, and the facilities.” The Task Force is assessing the state’s training programs with an eye toward “meshing with what the educational institutions are doing,” Murphy notes. “The biggest challenge is tying training into industry, getting internships going and giving people practical experience. We have to coordinate to make sure we have a marketplace and demand for these new jobs.” She emphasizes the parallel objective to keep young people in New York.
Currently, community colleges and BOCES schools are offering energy-related training programs. Syracuse University has an Environmental Science and Forestry Department with an advanced research and development initiative on biomass, as does Clarkson University.

Stony Brook University and Farmingdale State College offer programs on solar research and development. Murphy sees New York developing jobs for PV and wind turbine installation workers and “energy auditors” to conduct weatherization programs.

In addition, Murphy says, “New York State has manufacturing facilities that are unused or idle and can be retooled for making solar panels, turbine blades or gear boxes for wind turbines.” She adds, “We are now developing these necessary parts in the United States,” and admits that New York is “playing catch up,” looking to what other states have done successfully. She reports that at a recent energy conference in Houston, a majority of the 13,000 participants were representatives of manufacturing companies who want to produce gear boxes for wind turbines and coating for blades, among other products and services for a growing renewable energy industry. The Renewable Energy Task Force has recommended the development of new business incentives to attract renewable energy technology companies in order to build industry clusters in solar, wind, biomass and other technical areas. “We’d like to attract some of those companies to New York,” she adds.

On the policy side, the state is working to enable individuals to save on home heating and cooling, and allow business and commercial customers to do it as well. By late this June, legislators were poised to vote on a change to state law to encourage companies to produce their own renewable energy “on site” and deliver excess power back to the energy grid, a process known as “net metering.”

“The political will is very important,” notes Murphy. “Investors and companies are looking around the country as a whole, and saying, where is that commitment?”

A second chance
“Energy independence is more on people’s consciousness because of rising prices and world events that are affecting energy,” says Murphy, and people have had “a huge change in attitude about the need to take care of our planet.” In a recent Siena New York Poll of the Siena Research Institute, developed jointly by Siena and a consortium of energy advocates including ACE NY and Solar Alliance, New Yorkers overwhelming support state leaders in their pursuit of renewable energy. Murphy reports that across all demographic and party lines, “Ninety percent of voters support more investment in solar power and 83% support more investment in wind power. The first choice of 63% was solar and wind, over coal, nuclear and natural gas, as the technology to meet energy needs.”

Murphy emphasizes that the United States squandered its opportunity during the first oil embargo in the early 80s to create its own supply of domestic energy and be more energy efficient. “Here we are 20 years later talking about things and doing things we talked about in the late 80s and early 90s, like cogeneration, hydropower and biomass,” she remarks. “We have an opportunity to focus on renewable energy, energy that’s not fossil based, and if we let this opportunity go by again, shame on us! This is the time to make different choices.” She adds, “The public is finally ready and in many ways, they are ahead of the politicians on this.”

In May 2006, Murphy assumed the leadership at ACE NY, a nonprofit corporation promoting clean and renewable energy and energy efficiency. In the past two years, ACE membership has grown to over 75 organizations, including representatives from environmental, public interest and health-oriented groups, educational institutions and scientists. Murphy draws on this diverse membership when speaking to legislators and editorial boards and to spread awareness of the issues. She is a frequent commentator in major daily newspapers, energy publications and news services, and a special guest in the national, state and local broadcast media.

“I think I have a good perspective on energy issues, how we got to where we are today and how all the pieces fit together,” says Murphy. “I’m a believer.”