I don’t think anyone in NY expected anything except natural gas plants to replace Indian Point at least for the short term. Its a lot simpler to build a few combined cycle and peaker units in the short term than to find property in the NYC metro that can meet peak load using renewables and battery storage. Longer term, several gigawatts of off-shore wind, enough transmission build out for upstate/Canadian hydro, some battery storage (although im not convinced we’ll build out nearly enough), and very rarely used peaker plants will get us close enough to zero carbon emissions.
I don’t think anyone in NY expected anything except natural gas plants to replace Indian Point at least for the short term. Its a lot simpler to build a few combined cycle and peaker units in the short term than to find property in the NYC metro that can meet peak load using renewables and battery storage. Longer term, several gigawatts of off-shore wind, enough transmission build out for upstate/Canadian hydro, some battery storage (although im not convinced we’ll build out nearly enough), and very rarely used peaker plants will get us close enough to zero carbon emissions.