New York’s power grid spent last week in the spotlight as a four-day heat wave brought requests to moderate power usage – including requests by Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s for air conditioners to be set to 78 degrees and for as many electric devices as possible to be used during cooler evening hours.

Last week certainly shows the mess that New York’s elected officials and the administrators they have put in charge of day-to-day have made of the state’s power grid. While New York is hardly alone struggling to provide enough electricity for its residents, a two-day failure of the $6 billion Champlain Hudson Power Express power line from Quebec to New York City it is clear that the state’s decades-long unwillingness to use natural gas as a transition to its zero emissions power grid of the future was a mistake.

The Champlain Hudson Power Express line has been long discussed as a key project to improve reliability for the state power grid as natural gas power plants were retired. The 339-mile line brings enough hydropower from Quebec to power about 20% of New York City’s power needs when fully operational. While the state Independent System Operator hadn’t been counting on the line to maintain electric system reliability this summer since it only became operational in June, a technical issue that shut the line down for two days took away what should have been a source of power that could have helped during a time of peak power demand.

Warnings from Hochul, Mamdani and the state Independent System Operator last week should make it clear that New York needs more dispatchable power to meet demand during heat waves like the one we all dealt with last week. It’s worth noting that there were power warnings despite solar power production reaching 8 gigawatts of the state’s goal of 10 gigawatts of distributed solar. Distributed solar includes community solar and rooftop solar for homes and businesses that are considered behind the meter, which means customers don’t have to pay utility companies for the power they generate and, at the same time, provides power that doesn’t have to come from the power grid.

It’s both a noteworthy milestone and a cautionary tale that solar power production hit a milestone while the electric grid struggled through another heat wave. Renewable energy use is growing, but New York still needs heavy investment in dispatchable, reliable power thanks to the state’s lengthy war on natural gas.