Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces $16.6 Million in Awards for Five Long Duration Energy Storage Projects

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced $16.6 million in awards for five long duration energy storage projects that will help harness renewable energy and provide stored energy to New York's electric grid. Governor Hochul also announced an additional $17 million in competitive funding available for projects that advance development and demonstration of scalable innovative long duration energy storage technologies, including hydrogen. The projects will support the current Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goal to install 3,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030 while facilitating further development to 6,000 megawatts.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, Bob, it's hard to believe it has been four years since we gathered here and a lot has changed, particularly with respect to our environment. And it has not been good, but we'll get into that in a second. But Bob, I want to thank you for your incredible leadership in a space where we are recognized nationally, globally for having the greatest thought leaders in the academic institutions to back them up. And so really proud of the work that you do at the Advanced Energy Center.

And also, the dream team that I have working with me as partners in state government, Doreen Harris, you'll be hearing from her shortly. Let's give her round applause, the CEO of NYSERDA. Justin Driscoll, the Chief Executive Officer of NYPA. NYPA leading the way on our energy future. Let's give him a round of applause as well. Justin. And to the President of Stony Brook University, Dr. Maurie McInnis, you're the one who helps make it all happen. You know, you create the brain power, you help energize students to get them excited about the possibilities, the careers and reshaping the future that some people think is predestined, but I disagree with that. I believe we can change the future. So, I thank Stony Brook and as they evolve into our flagship institution, we've made a lot of recommendations on how we can enhance our public education system, again, to give us the preeminence that everything associated with New York should have. So, thank you to Stony Brook for all the work that you're continuing to do.

I can't believe this is your 12th conference already. And again, if you think back to what the conversations were probably in your first conference, I bet you're talking about very different things. And we are adaptive animals. We adapt to the circumstances of which we face ourselves. And I think about the fact that just, it was days ago that we gathered to honor the victims, their lives, the people we lost during a hurricane in New York City. Hurricane Ida. We've actually been slammed with two hurricanes right around my first week in office as Governor, a year ago. And at the time I noted that we had more hurricanes hit New York State than the State of Florida did. Definitely what we would consider in the category of climate change. That is unusual. And I also have seen the ravages of climate change. Bob alluded to fires literally after I left this commemoration for the 16 New Yorkers lives washed away during the flooding a year ago. I went up in a helicopter to observe the wildfires and the Catskills because the conditions were so exceptionally dry, unprecedented droughts across the State of New York. And then we talk about how we're preparing for the onslaught of vicious winter storms again, and flooding and preparedness. And luckily my Head of Disaster Preparedness, our Homeland Security Commissioner, Dr. Jackie Bray is actually a former meteorologist who worked as the Chief of Staff of the Weather Service. I said, I cannot think of a better person to be in charge of our statewide response and someone who really knows this.

So, we are living this every single day. It is having an effect on our communities, our economy and the fact that we're going to be talking in another month about the 10 year anniversary of when New York State got slammed with [Hurricane] Sandy. I mean, we still have communities that have not been rebuilt for this. So, anyone who questions the urgency with which I approach this, my administration, well, let's have that conversation because this is real. This is serious. And this is why we're gathered here today to bring together people like yourselves to help us navigate the answers to these questions. How do we figure out how to get there? And we've made tremendous strides and I want to talk about some of them, but I also have a long enough history in government to think about when I was a young person on Capitol Hill. And back in the seventies, and no, no one's old enough to remember the seventies in this room. And no, I know no one's old enough to remember the seventies in this room. Maybe Bob and I. I don't know. I grew up, anyone hear of Lackawanna, New York in Buffalo, New York? Other than the fact that the Buffalo Bills are playing tonight. Go Bills! It was a toxic dump and we didn't know we were being raised at a toxic dump. When you came to Lackawanna, the sky was permanently orange. I did not know there were blue skies in Lackawanna. There was always this orange cloud of pollution emanating from the steel plant where 20,000 people had good jobs, including my grandpa and my father for a while. My uncles, this was their bread and butter.

We also swam in Lake Erie back then, when we watched toxic chemicals that looked like molten lava coming off a volcano that was being dumped every single night, the discharges from the steel. And we didn't know any better. And we swam in that water, so I grew up in that. I worked on Capitol Hill and I remember talking about the energy crisis, the OPEC oil embargoes and all these bad things.

Those of us who were learning how to drive, you couldn't get gasoline certain days of the week because of the rationing. I became a staffer and all of a sudden, all the ideas that Jimmy Carter had put in place, investing in crazy ideas like wind power, solar energy, and all these other concepts that we thought would lead us out of this era of reliance on foreign oil, it all came to a crashing halt when Ronald Reagan put forth his budget and slashed all those. And I thought back then as a very young staffer, I said this could set us back 30 years. And indeed, it did. We've had to play catch up because of those decisions when we did not make those investments in our future at a time where today we'd be benefiting from them. We might not even have the need for a conference like this, to talk about how we save the planet, how we use new energy sources to stop mankind's assault on Mother Nature.

But here we are, embolden, heading into new unchartered territories, perhaps, but that's what I expect from the people of New York. I expect us to push the boundaries, to go where no man or woman has gone before, to quote Star Trek. Because we can do it. It's in our DNA. It's in our DNA to be that visionary. And that's what I'm calling upon you to deliver to us. The continued research through Bob's work at Stony Brook, gathering leaders like yourselves. I need to see the blueprint for going forward from all of you. And I also, as I mentioned, the leaders, people like Doreen Harris. We are one, we are being cutting edge and nation-leading here.

So, I'm going to talk about some of the things we've already been doing. This is a tremendous responsibility on my shoulders. I embrace that responsibility. And I am also am very cognizant of the fact that as I talk about the past and where we're going in the future, we are truly the first generation that has felt the impact of climate change in all the climate events I just described. But I also put this out there: We're also the last generation that can do something meaningful about it. And that is why our thoughtful energy plans, our plans to ensure that we reduce emissions by 85 percent by 2050. I think we can beat that. Every number that my team gives me, I say we can do a little better than that. We can do better than that.

So, 70 percent of our electricity will come from renewables by 2030. That's extraordinary, 2030 is right around the corner. I can almost see 2030 now. It isn't as far off in the future as it once felt. And so we're making these decisions. We're going to continue decarbonizing our economy. And at the last conference I was at, I made this bold declaration. I said, New York State should and can and will be the global epicenter of offshore wind. And now because of major investments, $500 million investment, we truly are at the cutting edge. And other states look at us with envy on how we've done this.

And I've been to so many events with leasing offshore wind opportunities for businesses and great public private partnerships, working with the Biden Administration. We've been a making tremendous amount of progress in this space, but I'm also very excited about the fact that we can create the supply chain to make sure that it does happen.

I want the component parts for wind turbines, for example, built in the State of New York. Well, they are, and that's exactly what's happening up in the Port of Albany, where we announced that we're going to be manufacturing component parts, shipping them down the Hudson River, down the Hudson River, the opposite direction where Henry Hudson first came up there Hudson River in the 1600s to expand more opportunities for commerce and growth.

We're continuing that legacy of using that waterway to help us imagine a whole new future with offshore winds. So, this is what gets me excited, the thousands of jobs being created, but also the climate impact that we now are embracing. So we're decarbonizing buildings. We're committing zero emission buses.

We have a Bond Act on the ballot. I hope you're all ready to go out on Election Day. We had a Bond Act that was our Clean Energy, Clean Water, Clean Air, Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act. It was about $3 billion a year ago. Last week during Climate Week, I said, you know what? We're facing more than I think that's going to be able to handle. We need to raise that.

So right now, we have a $4.2 billion Bond Act on the ballot, and I need everyone's support to get out and make sure that that passes. So we have the resources leveraged with the federal government and thank God for Joe Biden and the Democrats who passed the legislation that allows us, and Doreen's going to talk about this, the way we can use State money and leverage that with more, even more federal dollars.

So, these are great opportunities for us, but what I want to do today is announce the award winners of the $16.6 million to support innovative projects to enable the transition to a renewable electric grid. So let's announce them, drum roll anybody. $2.7 million to Borrego Solar Systems, $12.5 million to Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, $1.2 million to JC Solutions, $100,000 to Power to Hydrogen and $100,000 to Roccera. So, these are going to demonstrate real world possibilities. Again, we're trying to be very experimental here to find new clean energy sources, but beyond that, it's time to announce round two. So, get ready. Our RFPs are opening now for our second round of funding, another 17 million and the deadline is October 17.

So yes, yes, yes. We have very ambitious goals, but I know we will meet them because we really have no choice as we talk about green hydrogen, and enhanced battery storage. I mean, these are the challenges that lie before us, but there's nothing, no challenge that cannot be solved through smart people, the use of technology, create good jobs, create that whole ecosystem right here in New York and be the template for the rest of the world.

That's my expectation for energy and the environmental solutions that we need to embrace right here in the state of New York. So, I thank all of you again for continuing to lead the charge here. I'm counting on all of you. I'm looking for the ideas, give me the best, the brightest, and actually the boldest, the ones that people say cannot be attained. Put those on my desk first, and we'll get it done because there's only one New York and you happen to be the beneficiaries of an administration that truly, truly believes that there is no stopping us. We have no choice.

Thank you very much, everybody. Enjoy the conference.