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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced Wednesday that $7.5 million in funding is available for municipalities across the State for the installation of new SMART LED street lights as part of the Governor's Smart Street Lighting NY program. SMART LED street lights are equipped with improved internet connectivity and other digital enhancements that will allow municipalities to improve public services such as internet connectivity, transportation, public health and safety. The Smart Street Lighting NY program supports the Green New Deal, the nation's leading clean energy and jobs agenda to aggressively put New York on a path to economy-wide carbon neutrality, and is part of the Governor's comprehensive Reforming the Energy Vision strategy to meet New York's nation-leading goals to build a cleaner, more resilient and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.

"New York is leading the way in developing innovative new technologies that enhance energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Cuomo said. "This funding to modernize street lights across the state will not only increase public safety through increased visibility, it will also advance our aggressive initiatives to combat climate change and create a cleaner, greener New York for all."

The $7.5 million in funding was approved today by the New York Power Authority Board of Trustees. Municipalities can apply for up to $500,000 in funding as part of their partnership with NYPA on the installation of SMART LED street lighting. The largest cities outside of New York City—Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers—are eligible for $2.5 million, with the other $5 million earmarked for other municipalities. Awards will vary depending on the municipality's needs and the scale of the proposed project.

The City of Syracuse, designated by NYPA as New York State's "Flagship Smart City," will be the first large municipality in New York to test the innovative new streetlight technologies. Syracuse plans to evaluate the installation of equipment that can expand Wi-Fi, and 4G and 5G internet connection capabilities on its streetlights, and to install other digital enhancements to city-wide services, with $500,000 of support from NYPA, the first award from the $7.5 million statewide program.

Smart Street Lighting NY calls for at least 500,000 street lights throughout the state to be replaced with energy-saving LED technology by 2025. These streetlight upgrades support the Reforming the Energy Vision goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels.

The Power Authority is working with cities, towns, villages and counties in New York to fully manage and implement a customer's transition to LED technology. NYPA provides upfront financing for projects, with repayments made to NYPA from the resulting cost savings created by the reduced energy use of LEDs.

Introduced by Cuomo in his 2019 State of the State address, the Syracuse Surge is a comprehensive proposal to ignite economic growth and opportunity in the city of Syracuse and Central New York. The plan builds on the City's investments in technology infrastructure and partnerships in the public and private sectors.The Syracuse Surge will make investments in technology, education, workforce training development, housing and infrastructure, and is designed to attract new economic investments that will create jobs, shared prosperity and neighborhood transformation. More information about Smart Street Lighting NY and how it can help a municipality save on energy costs is available here.

Cuomo's Green New Deal, the nation's leading clean energy and jobs agenda, will aggressively put New York State on a path to economy-wide carbon neutrality under a strategy to be developed by the Climate Action Council of state, workforce and environmental justice experts.It provides for a just transition to clean energy, spurring the growth of the green economy and, when passed,will statutorily mandate New York's power be 100 percent clean andcarbon-free by 2040, one of the most aggressive goals in the U.S.

The cornerstone of this newly proposed mandate is a significant increase of New York's successful Clean Energy Standard to 70 percent renewable electricity by 2030. As part of the unprecedented ramp-up of renewable energy, New York has already invested $2.9 billion into 46 large-scale renewable projects across the state as it significantly increases its clean energy targets, such as: quadrupling New York's offshore wind target to a nation-leading 9,000 megawatts by 2035 to doubling distributed solar deployment to 6,000 megawatts by 2025 to deploying 3,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030. To support this ambitious work, NY Green Bank intends to use its expertise in overcoming financing gaps to foster greater environmental impacts per public dollar by raising over $1 billion in third party funds to expand climate financing availability across New York and the rest of North America.

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