Buffalo New Another Voice: New York can’t power the industries it already has, much less data centers

July 29th, 2026

July 29, 2026 – Read on Buffalonews.com here.

New York’s power limitations are the direct result of its restrictive Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. As a result, a moratorium on energy-intensive projects, like data centers, is almost irrelevant. Our energy policies have already created a self-inflicted ban on next-generation industries.

Since the CLCPA passed in 2019, New York has retired 4.4 gigawatts of generation while adding just 2.3 gigawatts. In other words, New York has lost enough capacity to power a city the size of Rochester.

This trend is not only damaging in terms of future economic development, but it’s also unsustainable for large load users of electricity already operating here. It also explains New York’s declining reliability margins. The New York Independent System Operator indicated that reliability margins this summer could be as low as 417 megawatts, not even enough to meet the electricity demand for one large load project, like Micron.

While the governor and others look to scapegoat data centers, there is little evidence they are responsible for New York’s nation-leading utility costs. The Department of Public Service issued two CLCPA Informational Reports covering three years’ worth of utility costs, which found that the law has increased bills across residential, commercial and industrial customers statewide.

Data centers represent a small percentage of New York’s overall load. In fact, New York’s electricity prices are nearly double those of Virginia and Texas, while those states have much higher concentrations of data centers.

If the Empire State doesn’t eliminate barriers to increased generating capacity immediately, a pause on data center construction becomes irrelevant − no large load employers will locate here, and the attendant jobs, innovation and economic development will look elsewhere.

Justin Wilcox is executive director at Upstate United, a nonpartisan advocacy coalition.