Overview

Resources and Consumption

New York has minor reserves of oil and gas, found primarily in the far western part of the State approaching Lake Erie. Although New York’s fossil fuel resources are limited, the State possesses considerable renewable energy potential. Several powerful rivers, including the Niagara and the Hudson, provide New York with some of the greatest hydropower resources in the Nation, and New York’s Catskill and Adirondack mountains offer substantial wind power potential. In addition, parts of New York are densely forested, allowing for potential fuelwood harvesting.

Although New York’s total energy consumption is among the highest in the United States, energy intensity and per capita energy consumption are among the lowest, due in part to the region’s widely used mass transportation systems. The commercial and residential sectors lead State energy demand, while the transportation sector is also a major consumer.

Petroleum

New York’s petroleum products are supplied by refineries located in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the Colonial Pipeline system from the Gulf Coast, and foreign imports that principally originate in Canada, the Caribbean, South America, North Africa, and Europe. Located in both New York and New Jersey, the New York Harbor area has a petroleum bulk terminal storage capacity of over 75 million barrels, making it the largest and most important petroleum product hub in the high-demand Northeast.

New York Harbor acts as a central distribution center for the region, and many of the petroleum products delivered to the Harbor are redistributed to smaller ports where they supply local demand. In particular, the Hudson River, which meets the Atlantic Ocean in New York Harbor, provides a major inland water route for petroleum product barges supplying eastern New York and parts of western New England. On the other side of the State, western New York product markets are primarily supplied from Canada at the Port of Buffalo, and via the Buckeye and Sunoco pipeline systems from Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The TEPPCO pipeline system from the Gulf Coast delivers mostly propane to upstate markets.

As in many northeastern urban areas, New York City and the surrounding metropolitan areas require reformulated gasoline blended with ethanol, and the New York Harbor area is the primary Northeast distribution hub for ethanol supplies. Ports located on the New Jersey side of New York Harbor receive ethanol rail shipments from the Midwest and marine imports from Brazil and the Caribbean, and then redistribute these supplies to markets throughout the Northeast. Another large ethanol storage facility serving the Northeast is located in Albany, New York. A proposed pipeline would transport up to 10 million gallons of ethanol per day from production facilities in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and South Dakota to terminals in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the New York Harbor.

New York, along with much of the Northeast, is vulnerable to distillate fuel oil shortages and price spikes during the winter months due to high demand for home heating. One-third of New York households use fuel oil as their primary energy source for home heating. In January and February 2000, distillate fuel oil prices in the Northeast rose sharply when extreme winter weather increased demand unexpectedly and hindered the arrival of new supply, as frozen rivers and high winds slowed the docking and unloading of barges and tankers. In July 2000, in order to reduce the risk of future shortages, the President directed the U.S. Department of Energy to establish the Northeast Heating Oil Reserve. The Reserve gives Northeast consumers adequate supplies for about 10 days, the time required for ships to carry heating oil from the Gulf of Mexico to New York Harbor. The Reserve's storage terminals are located at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and Groton and New Haven, Connecticut.

Natural Gas

Although western New York produces a small amount of natural gas, the vast majority of New York’s natural gas supply is brought in via pipeline from other States and Canada. The Transcontinental and Tennessee Gas Transmission pipelines from the Gulf Coast and the Iroquois pipeline from Canada link up with local gas distribution networks that supply the New York City metropolitan area and Long Island. Numerous other gas transmission systems branch in from Pennsylvania and Canada to feed other parts of the State.

New York has moderate natural gas storage capacity, developed principally from depleted natural gas fields in the Appalachian Basin in western New York. These storage sites, along with those in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, are important for supplying the Northeast region, particularly during the peak demand winter season. New York’s residential, commercial, and electric power sectors all consume large amounts of natural gas. To meet New York and Connecticut’s growing demand for natural gas, particularly for electric power generation, an offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal with a capacity of 2 billion cubic feet per day has been proposed in Federal waters on the Outer Continental Shelf south of Long island, 25 miles away from New York Harbor.

Coal, Electricity, and Renewables

Unlike many States, New York does not rely heavily on any one fuel for electricity generation. Nuclear power from New York’s four nuclear plants and natural gas are the leading generation fuels, each typically accounting for about three-tenths of State generation. Hydroelectricity, coal, and petroleum each account for a substantial share of the power generated in the State, as well. New York also imports electricity from neighboring States and Canada.

The average New York household consumes about one-half the electricity of the average U.S. household, largely because few use electricity as their primary energy source for home heating and because demand for air-conditioning is low during the typically mild summer months.

Various failures led to major electricity outages affecting New York in 1965, 1977, and 2003. The August 2003 blackout was the most severe blackout in North American history, affecting an estimated 55 million people in the U.S. Northeast and eastern Canada. For safety reasons, nuclear power plants are required by Federal law to shut down if back-up power systems fail, and all four of New York’s nuclear power plants were forced offline. As a result, almost the entire State lost power during the incident.

New York is a major hydroelectric power producer, and its hydroelectric generation is the highest of any State east of the Rocky Mountains. When New York’s Robert Moses Niagara plant opened near the Niagara River in 1961, it was the largest hydroelectric generation facility in the world. Today, the 2,353-megawatt power plant is still New York’s largest electricity generator. Nonhydroelectric renewable energy sources contribute only minimally to the State’s power grid, although New York is one of the Nation's top generators of electricity from municipal solid waste and landfill gas. As of 2008, New York ranked among the top 10 States in photovoltaic solar power capacity and had become a substantial producer of wind energy by doubling its wind energy capacity between 2006 and 2008. In September 2004, the New York Public Service Commission adopted a renewable portfolio standard requiring 24 percent of the State’s electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2013.