By Jeff St. John, Canary Media,
For the past four years, the UpgradeNY coalition of clean energy, environmental, and labor groups has been pushing New York regulators to approve projects that could switch entire neighborhoods from fossil gas to clean electric heating — and to do it without undermining fossil gas utility jobs and investments.
The vision? Replace gas pipelines with networks that tap into latent, otherwise wasted sources of heat, from both underground and industrial or municipal systems, to dramatically improve the efficiency and sustainability of electric heat pumps.
Last week, the coalition won a long-delayed — if partial — victory. The New York Public Service Commission approved two of these utility thermal energy network (UTEN) plans, committing a combined $111.5 million to build what will be the second and third such projects of their kind in the country.