BUFFALO, N.Y. — U.S. Senator and Majority Leader from New York Chuck Schumer announced over $6 billion in federal money to help build a massive Micron semi-conductor chip manufacturing complex in the Syracuse area.
He says there are numerous economic benefits including the creation of up to 50,000 new jobs.
But 2 On Your Side found out there are also power usage concerns as the state seeks to transition to full electrification of homes and vehicles.
Senator Schumer once again touted the huge $100 billion Micron computer chip production complex planned for the suburban Syracuse community of Clay, N.Y., which also involves much more government funding with state and local tax incentives.
"It's a monumental leap forward to making this project with tens of thousands of jobs for Central and upstate New York a reality," Schumer said. "It's going to affect the economies all across the I-90 corridor from Albany, Utica, to Rochester and Buffalo."
That last part a reference to the planned Edwards Vacuum Plant as a supplier in the Genesee County STAMP industrial park.
And there is the existing and expanding GlobalFoundries semiconductor chip plant near Albany in Malta, N.Y.
It also sounds important to bring a major chip maker like Micron to a US community under the Congressional Chips act for supply chain and national security reasons.
But according to some trade journals, chip fabrication plants or fabs as they're called, are reportedly among the most energy-intensive facilities in the world.
There's a balancing act as New York state pushes more electrification under the 2019 climate act for our homes and vehicles.
The New York State ISO or Independent State Operator, which coordinates state utilities, said in a 2023 power grid reliability report that "added demand from such chip plants and even data cooling centers in Central and Western New York," like the Yahoo facility in Lockport, "creates a potential state resource deficiency."
2 On Your Side asked Senator Schumer, "How would you assure customers in upstate New York of the electric system reliability with the grid when we're going to have quite a demand for power usage from projects like this. How do you balance that and how do you assure us we're not going to have power brownouts or blackouts because of operations like this?"
Schumer replied: "Micron and the big chip fab plants use electricity far more effective and use less of it to create each new job than some of the other uses of electricity such as bitcoin and all those things that like that you've heard about in the Finger Lakes area. But second we have new energy sources coming to New York state from upstate, from Canada, and coming through power lines into upstate New York There's a lot of water energy up in Canada. The trouble in the past has been there haven't' been power lines to bring into New York state and now there are two big power lines being built that will help bring more electricity to New York 'because we will need it as your say."
The senator may have been referring to new power transmission projects, such as the $6 billion Champlain Hudson Power Express to actually bring in power to New York City from Canada. It is projected to be "fully operational in spring of 2026, delivering 1,250 MW of low-cost renewable power directly into the New York Metro area."
We followed up by asking, "So why would the ISO raise this issue, senator? I mean, this is an independent agency raising this issue and the concern?"
Schumer replied: "These power lines I think will answer their questions."
We have so far not heard back in a request from the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul. But on Thursday the state announced a Grid of the Future study to quote "build a clean and resilient electric grid," We will see if this topic of chip fab power usage is addressed.