NYC’s Comptroller and Key Investment

But let's turn our attention towards the electricity demand, 'cause as there's an increase in power needs from all this AI, uh, you know, this could also be a constraint for New York and the city's infrastructure.

So with the added demand from AI, do you think that at a time when n- we've seen extreme heat and climate change, um, that it's putting greater stress on the grid? And how can New York City build supply fast enough?

We have a grid, uh, Chris, that is, uh, extremely outdated.

P- parts of it are 100 years old and, and even older.

And we have a series of demands as, which you mentioned.

We have, uh, a push to electrify buildings- We have a growth in electric vehicles, we have the growth in AI-driven data centers, we have the imperative about, uh, converting off of dirty energy sources onto cleaner energy.

We have an affordability crisis as prices are going up.

And the answer to these challenges, this, this series of interlocking challenges, is we have got to expand our clean energy capacity.

Mm-hmm.

At, at every part of the grid; generation, transmission, distribution, storage, and we're behind on all of it.

And the result right now is that prices are way up, and, uh, our resilience is really under stress right now.

We had only really one heat wave over the summer this year in New York City in, in July, but we had thousands of, of customers lose power and tens of thousands that had voltage drops.

In my building, the elevator didn't work for days 'cause of the voltage drop.

So it's already impacting people.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, we're way behind on our, our clean energy targets.

Way behind.

I mean, we're at, o- on, on a good day, 40% of our electricity is from renewable sources in New York City, but by, by any re- any, any reasonable metric, we're behind.

So we have a lot of work to do, and it's gonna require a build-out, and we can talk about what that'll take, but it's something that I'm also deeply engaged in.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's, that was kinda my next question.

That, that you've advocated for greater use of city property for distributed solar, battery storage, um, you know, alternatives.

How much can such energy realistically accomplish in, in a city this large, um, and demands that are so large, but also is there potential that green space would be included in, in-

Yes, absolutely.

Look, we, we use a lot of energy in New York City.

But let's turn our attention towards the electricity demand, 'cause as there's an increase in power needs from all this AI, uh, you know, this could also be a constraint for New York and the city's infrastructure.

So with the added demand from AI, do you think that at a time when n- we've seen extreme heat and climate change, um, that it's putting greater stress on the grid? And how can New York City build supply fast enough?

We have a grid, uh, Chris, that is, uh, extremely outdated.

P- parts of it are 100 years old and, and even older.

And we have a series of demands as, which you mentioned.

We have, uh, a push to electrify buildings- We have a growth in electric vehicles, we have the growth in AI-driven data centers, we have the imperative about, uh, converting off of dirty energy sources onto cleaner energy.

We have an affordability crisis as prices are going up.

And the answer to these challenges, this, this series of interlocking challenges, is we have got to expand our clean energy capacity.

Mm-hmm.

At, at every part of the grid; generation, transmission, distribution, storage, and we're behind on all of it.

And the result right now is that prices are way up, and, uh, our resilience is really under stress right now.

We had only really one heat wave over the summer this year in New York City in, in July, but we had thousands of, of customers lose power and tens of thousands that had voltage drops.

In my building, the elevator didn't work for days 'cause of the voltage drop.

So it's already impacting people.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, we're way behind on our, our clean energy targets.

Way behind.

I mean, we're at, o- on, on a good day, 40% of our electricity is from renewable sources in New York City, but by, by any re- any, any reasonable metric, we're behind.

So we have a lot of work to do, and it's gonna require a build-out, and we can talk about what that'll take, but it's something that I'm also deeply engaged in.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's, that was kinda my next question.

That, that you've advocated for greater use of city property for distributed solar, battery storage, um, you know, alternatives.

How much can such energy realistically accomplish in, in a city this large, um, and demands that are so large, but also is there potential that green space would be included in, in-

Yes, absolutely.

Look, we, we use a lot of energy in New York City.