Governor gives behind-the-meter storage a US$55m boost on New York’s Long Island

Customers in Long Island, New York, that install commercial energy storage systems of up to 5MW and residential solar-plus-storage will be eligible for incentive payments of US$250 per kWh of storage installed.

That’s while a US$55 million pledge from state Governor Andrew Cuomo lasts, with close to US$15 million of funding to be spent this year and the remainder to be paid out over the next three to five years.

Cuomo said that the incentives for energy storage “will help Long Islanders grow their clean energy economy and create jobs while also improving the resiliency of their grid in the face of more frequent extreme weather events”.

Building out resiliency on Long Island will help the state further its renewable ambitions, with Cuomo having ushered in what was dubbed a ’Green New Deal’ for the state, including 3,000MW of energy storage to be deployed by 2030. Up to US$350 million of direct investment could be made into supporting energy storage deployment and businesses, Energy-Storage.news reported in April.

Even before that, New York was already on the path of its Renewing the Energy Vision (NY REV) programme, examining how to modernise and re-energise with renewable and more energy efficient solutions one of the world’s grandest old grids.

In other words, batteries can help balance the grid through anticipating and responding to its needs in real-time, rather than fossil fuel generators which either run 24/7 or react relatively slowly to those same signals from the grid. For both commercial and residential systems, the utility has recognised the role they can play in load relief and other network support, meaning that besides being a subsidy program to encourage good, environmentally-friendly technologies and customer behaviour, installed systems will also provide an immediate benefit to PSEG-LI.

Commercial systems with an AC grid-connection of up to 5MW; which can be either behind-the-meter or connected to distribution system loads, will be eligible for the incentives. At present, this is set at US$250 per kWh although it is likely this amount will decline as the Retail Energy Storage Incentive Program nears its targeted aims of reducing costs and increasing widespread deployment. Not only batteries but also thermal and mechanical systems and other chemical storage types could be included, while systems can be standalone, as well as paired with solar and other resources.

For residential, the program really emphasises solar-plus-storage, providing incentives through NYSERDA’s NY Sun support mechanism program, as well as through adding the home systems to PSEG-LI’s Dynamic Load Management tariff, again helping to manage the network through aggregating the capabilities of customers’ systems as demand response. NY Sun-eligible customers get an initial US$250 per kWh installed this year, declining to US$200 per kWh in the next tranche of payments, while the PSEG-LI utility program offers further opportunities for financial support.

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