Green Energy program ends as Westchester Power shuts off

WESTCHESTER, N.Y. - Westchester Power’s abrupt demise has ended a decade’s dream of cheaper, greener electricity.

The program’s customers—some 130,000 homes and small businesses in 26 Westchester communities when this year began—are back at year’s end in brown supplies distributed by New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Con Edison.

Sustainable Westchester, the power program’s parent organization, pulled the plug on community-choice aggregation (CCA) on Nov. 30, citing what it called the “practical implementation challenges” of recently adopted outreach and education mandates by the state.

“Sustainable Westchester has concluded that these regulatory requirements cannot be met on a schedule consistent with the program’s continued operation,” the Mount Kisco-based nonprofit said in a prepared statement.

With no immediate replacement for CCA’s predictably priced, frequently green flow of electricity, environmental activists and others in Bedford and surrounding communities express frustration and concern.

The environmental organization Bedford 2030, for example, is working to achieve an ambitious goal: 80 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions before this decade ends. But CCA’s collapse “definitely will have an effect on our emissions as everyone in the program is now back in standard supply,”  Mariah Okrongly, the executive director, said.

Others have growing suspicions, if no firm evidence, that a state agency forced Westchester Power to jettison the program.

Bedford Supervisor Ellen Calves, a former B2030 program director, points a finger at the state Public Service Commission. “It just seems they have piled on the requirements. I’ve seen how frustrated the staff at Sustainable Westchester has been trying to meet what seems like over-the-top, not-really-necessary requirements.”

Calves ruled out as impractical any suggestion that Bedford, with population of about 17,000 and perhaps only 4,000 to 6,000 potential utility customers, could go it alone and form a one-town CCA.

Bedford’s website does advise residents that the town “remains committed to working with our sustainability partners like Bedford 2030 and Sustainable Westchester to accelerate a transition to clean power, promote energy efficiency, reduce costs and improve resiliency.”

Dan Welsh, Westchester Power’s longtime director, has had his share of fights with the PSC’s enforcement arm, the Department of Public Safety. But in a prepared statement, he defended DPS staffers for “doing their jobs. They were instructed to require all elements set out in the rules be fulfilled . . . they had no discretion.”

Still, he continued, “ The result of this inflexibility . . . has been that the program that we built up together with the municipalities has been decommissioned and the contracts that we secured through competitive auctions have been cancelled. The rates that were to go into effect, better than other renewable energy offerings from private suppliers, will not be available to consumers.”

Welsh’s future as a Sustainable Westchester employee remains uncertain. For now, Welsh said in an interview, he’s a part-timer, winding down the program he and other volunteers worked to establish more than a decade ago.

Sustainable Westchester sponsors several eco efforts beyond CCA, including solar-energy programs for homes, businesses and municipalities; electric-vehicle charging facilities; building decarbonization; and home energy assessments and tips to lower energy consumption.