AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
The Impact of the New York Clean Energy Standard on Urban and Regional Air Quality
JEFFREY SWARD, Danyang Guo, Kaleb Roush, Mackenzie Kinard, K. Max Zhang, Cornell University
Abstract Number: 545 Working Group: Regional and Global Air Quality and Climate Modeling
Abstract New York State recently announced a Clean Energy Standard (CES) which mandates that 50% of all electricity be generated using renewable resources by 2030. This CES is referred to as the 50 by ’30 goal. Possible scenarios for New York’s 2030 electricity mix should be evaluated not only in terms of supplying the necessary capacity and reliability to the grid, but also in terms of urban and regional air quality. No studies up to this point have considered the air quality impacts in New York State, focused on New York City (NYC), associated with proposed electricity mix scenarios meeting the Clean Energy Standard. To assess the impacts of pursuing these different electricity mix scenarios, we developed an integrated modeling framework consisting of renewable resource assessment, economic dispatch modeling, emissions inventory changes, meteorological and air quality modeling, and health impact analysis. We simulated air quality using the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model with nested model grids. The spatial resolutions of each grid were 15, 5, and 1 kilometer, respectively. The highest spatial resolution grid was centered over NYC. Future emissions inventories were developed under the constraint that 50% of total electricity generated must come from renewable resources. We reported the changes in ozone (O3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations over NYC and the entire state. This will allow decision makers to better direct investment to develop energy projects that will have the greatest benefit to air quality and therefore public health.