Assessment of Electric Grid Headroom for Accommodating Building Electrification
New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) establishes ambitious goals for carbon reduction, including achieving a zero-emission electric grid by 2040 and a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. To meet these mandates, the state is focusing on aggressive building electrification, as buildings currently contribute nearly one-third of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding how much additional load the current electric distribution grid can handle is crucial for supporting this electrification. Assessing grid capacity will help the state anticipate the timing and scale of necessary grid investments while allowing for near-term actions that consider long-term needs.
On behalf of New Yorkers for Clean Power and The Energy Foundation, Synapse evaluated the distribution grid capacity of several New York utilities to accommodate future building electrification. Based primarily on forecasts from the New York Independent System Operator and the electrification hosting capacity maps from New York utilities, Synapse found that the existing electric distribution systems have ample headroom for building electrification. Headroom estimates range from 29% to as much as 105% of the current winter peak loads. This existing capacity is sufficient to support significant increases in heat pump installations, allowing for 29% to 47% of all residential heating equipment to be heat pumps (with a statewide average of 39%) over the next 9 to 16 years, provided that the new loads are strategically distributed to optimize the use of the available headroom.