I used to work at fracking sites. Now, I’m all-in on clean energy for New York

About seven years ago, I had an unusual commute. Monday mornings, I would drive from my home in Yonkers to LaGuardia Airport. Then I’d fly to Pittsburgh where I’d rent a car, drive to the Marcellus Shale gas fields of western Pennsylvania and spend the week at drill sites.

Clad in work boots and a hardhat, I used logistics skills I learned as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers platoon leader. I oversaw the acquisition and operation of 50- to 100-ton truck cranes needed for hydraulic fracking. I also managed work crews who drove pick-up trucks around drill sites checking heavy rubber containment systems for breaches. It was hard work. I enjoyed it.

But in 2019, I was out of a job. Worse, I had to lay off about 30 people. A 1-2 punch of corporate restructuring and gas prices that spiked, then quickly plummeted, had me back in Yonkers for good.

Around this time, a former colleague called. We had worked together years earlier at the World Trade Center reconstruction site, hauling and installing heavy electrical equipment like transformers, generators and transmission lines. We started to talk about his recent work in clean energy.

Hearing about his thin-film solar business was a light-bulb moment. The future of energy, I realized, was not fossil fuels; rather, it was renewable energy and electrification. I wanted to seize opportunities created by this shift, so I founded a company called Blue Lake Clean Energy Group.

Now — thanks to smart policies like those recently outlined by Gov. Kathy Hochul in her proposed executive budget for fiscal year 2025, which is scheduled to be finalized on April 1 — my partners and I see opportunities throughout the energy sector. This includes long-duration energy storage, microgrids, geothermal, and turning heat that’s wasted during industrial operations into energy. We also see an opportunity to finally build an energy system that centers community renewal and rectifies historical burdens placed on towns and neighborhoods that have the least social and political power.

Driving these opportunities are commonsense policies.

In 2019, New York passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or CLCPA, a pioneering climate law that takes an economy-wide approach to climate policy. It’s the first major, state-level climate law in the nation to codify equity and environmental justice. The CLCPA kicked off a flurry of activity and sent strong market signals that put the state on a path toward increased electric grid reliability, lower consumer costs, and a reinvigorated economy where local businesses can thrive.

For example, in Hochul’s State of the State earlier this year, she wisely proposed the RAPID Act to centralize and accelerate the process for siting transmission, renewable power and grid investments. This action could help projects like the 340-mile Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line — the first of two renewable energy transmission projects which together will bring $8.2 billion in economic development and 8,300 jobs to the state. By enabling higher loads, new transmission lines help optimize electric vehicle infrastructure and hasten the switch to clean, efficient heat pumps.

Innovations — like microgrids, community energy storage and “virtual power plants” — can also make the grid more flexible and durable. This is crucial, especially as more renewables like South Fork Wind, the country’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm, come on-line and start delivering power to New York.

Federal policies further enable private-sector expansion. Since the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed in 2022, 10 major projects have been announced across New York’s clean economy, according to the nonpartisan business group E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs). The projects, ranging from an EV charging hub in Maspeth to a Genesee County green hydrogen fuel cell plant, are expected to create more than 2,700 jobs while generating $780 million in private investment.

In addition, 40% of overall IRA investment benefits must go to marginalized communities that have been underserved and overburdened by pollution. Modeled after CLCPA equity provisions, this federal initiative, called Justice40, will help millions more Americans participate in the epic story that is our nation’s economic growth.

With the CLCPA and IRA, New York is building the foundation for an electricity supply that, in just 15 years, will be almost entirely renewable and emissions-free. It won’t happen overnight, but in a career that’s taken me from the military, to the Marcellus Shale gas fields, to the frontlines of the clean energy revolution, I know doubling down on clean energy is good for New York.

That’s why I’m looking forward to a finalized state budget that puts clean energy front and center.

Dennis Garrett is CEO of Blue Lake Clean Energy Group. He lives in Yonkers.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY needs a clean energy strategy