New York schools ditch oil burners for electric heating to relieve asthma

City schools are on the verge of an electric shock, Mayor Eric Adams and officials said Friday.

Hizzoner unveiled a plan to get rid of dirty oil boilers in about 100 schools and replace them with cleaner electric heaters that run off New York’s power grid and don’t burn fuel on the property, officials said.

The $4 billion green energy in city schools program will begin in areas with “real problems of asthma” and other health-related factors, Adams said. All new schools being built in the city will also be heated all-electrically.

The program will reduce as much pollution as 26,000 cars remove from the city’s streets, the mayor said.

“This will be the most impactful energy initiative under this administration to reduce emissions for the city’s operations,” said Adams of PS 5’s Dr. Ronald McNair in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

The small elementary school will be the first in the Big Apple to stop burning oil, officials said.

Bed-Stuy has one of the 10 highest rates of asthma of any neighborhood in the city. According to the city, nearly 4% of all children ages 0 to 17 in the area need emergency room visits for respiratory illnesses each year.

Around 60,000 urban schoolchildren in grades K through 8 have active asthma, the report said.

The citywide project will also install efficient LED lighting in 800 schools – about half of all Ministry of Education buildings.

“You have two mothers, I like to say you have the mother who gave birth to you and you have mother earth. And we must love these two mothers, because one gave birth and the other sustains us,” Adams said.

According to a press release, the program aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 120,000 tons annually.

Initially, around 200 schools will continue to produce electricity for on-site heat, but will switch from No. 4 heating oil to ultra-low sulfur biofuel.

The move away from the highly polluting substance was already required under local law, but pushes back the implementation timeline by a few years.

The city will also begin a $520 million investment to electrify 19 schools over the next two years and grow to a total of 100 schools by 2030.

“This is just the beginning and our goal is to keep moving forward,” said Adams.

Officials have so far pledged just $2 billion of the plan’s estimated $4 billion total cost and said they would “identify the remaining funds over the coming years.”