Mayor Bill de Blasio kicked off Climate Week yesterday with the announcement of solar installations doubling since the beginning of his administration. One City" Built to Last plan was release last week to report the spur of growth of solar energy in New York City for both public and private buildings.
New York -- Under the Mayor de Blasio's One City: Built to Last plan, greenhouse gas emissions for public buildings became a commitment to reduce climate change within the city and spur major cost savings for New Yorker's by creating thousands of new jobs. New York is the largest city that is committed to 80 percent of reduction geared by 2050 with charts of long-term investments in renewable sources of energy and a total transition from fossil fuels. Last year, the plan lead an additional 10% reduction in building-based greeenhouse gas emissions and $8.5 billion in energy cost-savings over ten years to generate approximately 3, 500 new jobs in construction and energy services, according to the New York City Report. The 2014 plan was for every single public building to become upgraded by 2025 with significant energy use. According to a 2014 City of New York report, nearly three quarters of New York City's greenhouse emissions come from energy used to heat, cool, and power buildings, making building retrofits a central component of any plan to dramatically reduce emissions.
Mayor Bill de Blasio stated, "New York City is a global leader when it comes to reducing our environmental footprint -- and we doubled down last Climate Week with our commitment ot reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050. That commitment is already paying huge dividends." "Solar is a vital piece of the puzzle as we move to renewables and away from fossil fuels. We've more than doubled solar installations in the last 20 months, and that will exponentially grow as we build a more sustainable and resilient New York."
The overall idea for the City to become committed to innovating housing to become more energy efficient was to install 100 megawatts (MW) of solar power on public buildings by spurring the installation of 250 MW on private buildings by 2025. Mayor de Blasio's One City: Built to Last, the New York Solar Smart initiative at CUNY to support the development of private solar installations in New York City. A program called One City also assisted in the expansion of the Solarize program, which encourages group purchase of solar energy installations across communities to lower cost for small businesses and homeowners. Solarize has already begun in Brooklyn Community Board 6 (Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Columbia Waterfront, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Red Hook) and will soon expand to a number of other communities around the city.
The City is also funding CUNY’s NYC Solar Partnership, which develops and implements comprehensive plans for large-scale solar integration and associated economic development around the city, including increased resiliency for communities through targeted solar installations around grid independence and battery storage. Additionally, the City’s comprehensive resiliency plan includes support for distributed generation and microgrids in order to ensure more resilient power supplies.
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