The first meeting of the state’s new Energy Planning Board occurred May 6, 2008, before a standing-room-only crowd. The board was created by executive order of NY Gov. David Paterson.
According to press reports, the Board intends to create a website and otherwise engage the public in its deliberations, as well as to hold a half-dozen public hearings after release of the draft plan, scheduled for March 2009, and before publication of the final plan, to be released three months later. Without doubt an ambitious time line.
The last state energy plan, issued in June 2002, and per NYSERDA, “designed to keep New York at the forefront among the states in providing its citizens with fairly priced, clean, and efficient energy resources” may be found on NYSERDA’s website.
One would anticipate wind energy to play a more important role in this new energy plan than it did in the last one. Wind energy was not specifically referenced in the executive summary of the 2002 plan and barely made an explicit appearance in the plan’s findings and conclusions or policy objectives and recommendations. Wind’s potential was, however, described with some detail in plan section 3-3.
