Many states in the U.S. have adopted clean energy targets requiring rapid renewable energy generator deployment. New York’s Clean Energy Standard sets one of the nation's most ambitious targets: sourcing 70% of the state's electricity from renewable energy by 2030. All renewable energy projects require a permit prior to construction, meaning a lengthy permitting process will lead to delayed renewable energy deployment. Prior to 2020, projects were processed under Article 10 of the Public Service Law. In 2020, New York created the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission (ORES) to streamline permitting and accelerate project approvals.

This study provides the first empirical evaluation of New York’s 2020 permitting reform by comparing project timelines under the Article 10 and ORES regulatory regimes. I constructed a dataset using 2012-2025 data on large-scale renewable energy projects from the New York State Department of Public Service Document and Matter Management (DMM) system. Permitting duration is defined as the number of days between application submission and final approval. Linear regression models are used to find the association between permitting timelines and regulatory regime, project size, technology type, public comments, and county-level demographics.

By quantitatively assessing whether ORES reduces permitting durations relative to Article 10, this study evaluates the effectiveness of state-level renewable energy permitting reform and informs future policy reform.