Under Public Pressure to Build, NYPA Considers 6.2 GW Additional Public Renewables

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Under Public Pressure to Build, NYPA Considers 6.2 GW Additional Public Renewables

While planned projects potentially grow, the authority has yet to break ground on projects, and now promises more discount power to corporations

New York, New York – Following a mass pressure campaign that won $100 million in state budget funding earlier this year, the the New York Power Authority (NYPA) confirmed at a Board of Trustees meeting that it is currently reviewing an additional 6.2 gigawatts (GW) of renewable projects beyond the 5.5 GW currently planned.

This potential addition still falls short of the 15GW thousands of New Yorkers and elected officials, like Mayor Zohran Mamdani, are calling on Governor Kathy Hochul to build. Building 15GW of public renewables would lower electric bills for New Yorkers who need it most, create tens of thousands of union jobs and allow the state to shutter polluting fossil fuel peaker plants in Black and brown communities.

At the same meeting, NYPA confirmed that it is giving discounted power to Annheuser Busch, Kraft Heinz, and IBM, and has yet to break ground on any of their planned public renewables projects despite being given authority to do so three years ago with the passage of the Build Public Renewables Act.

Alex Patterson, Campaign Coordinator for Public Power NY, said: “While working class New Yorkers’ struggle to pay electric bills and breathe during climate crisis-induced disasters, Governor Kathy Hochul is giving discounted power to multibillion dollar corporations. As we are crushed by record breaking heat summer after summer, affordable electricity becomes even more necessary to survive. By slow-walking the buildout of public renewables, Governor Hochul puts our lives at risk and takes money directly from our pockets.”

The New York budget approved this year includes $100 million for public renewables, a bright spot amidst Hochul’s devastating rollbacks to New York’s climate law.

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Note to the editor:

About Public Power NY

As chronicled in the new book “Organize or Burn.” Public Power NY is a movement fighting to ensure New York effectively carries out the Build Public Renewables Act by building 15 Gigawatts of public renewables by 2030. Hailed as the first statewide Green New Deal law, BPRA was written by PPNY and passed in 2023 thanks to four years of organizing by a multiracial, multi-generational movement of climate and advocacy organizations, labor unions representing millions of New Yorkers and tens of thousands of New Yorkers who have taken action from upstate, downstate, and everywhere in between. With federal climate action off the table, BPRA has enabled NY to not just play defense against Trump, but lead the way the way FDR created NYPA to do.