New York Funds Energy Storage On Long Island

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, D-N.Y., has announced a funding opportunity for both residential and commercial energy storage on Long Island.

The program will be launched with an initial rollout of nearly $15 million in incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) through its Retail Energy Storage Incentive Program. This round of incentives will support energy storage installed at customer sites for stand-alone systems or systems paired with solar.

The remainder of the funds, totaling approximately $55 million, will be allocated within the next three to five years.

According to the Cuomo administration, energy storage projects supported by this initiative will advance progress toward achieving New York’s target of 3 GW of energy storage deployed by 2030 – the equivalent to powering 40% of New York’s homes. The initiative also supports Cuomo’s Green New Deal, a clean energy jobs agenda.

“With our nation-leading clean energy goals and aggressive strategy to combat climate change, New York continues to set the example of climate leadership for other states across the country,” Cuomo says. “These incentives for energy storage will help Long Islanders grow their clean energy economy and create jobs while also improving the resiliency of the grid in the face of more frequent extreme weather events.”

As renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar, increase across the state, energy storage will help enhance the efficiency of the electric grid in order to maximize the benefits of these resources, the Cuomo administration says. Energy storage systems will also enable New York to meet its peak power needs while lessening its reliance fossil fuel plants.

Funding is available in the following two categories:

Commercial

NYSERDA’s Retail Energy Storage Incentive Program will support new grid-connected energy storage systems up to 5 MW AC located either with load behind-the-meter or connected directly to the distribution system. The first block incentive will offer $250/kWh of energy storage installed. Eligible energy storage systems include chemical, thermal or mechanical systems compensated under a Public Service Electric and Gas Long Island (PSEG-LI) tariff or load relief program. Eligible systems may be installed alone or paired with on-site generation, such as solar.

Residential

NYSERDA and PSEG-LI are also jointly launching a residential solar-plus-energy storage program, which provides new projects in Long Island with an upfront storage incentive through NYSERDA’s NY-Sun Program, as well as additional compensation through PSEG-LI’s Dynamic Load Management (DLM) tariff. The DLM tariff pays customers to reduce the amount of electricity used from the electric grid during hours when the demand for power is highest. NY-Sun will initially release two incentive blocks for new residential solar-plus-storage systems beginning at $250/kWh of installed energy storage and then declining to $200/kWh in the second block.

“As more renewable resources are brought online throughout the state, energy storage will improve the efficiency of the grid to better integrate resources like solar while providing residents and businesses with a cleaner, more reliable energy system,” comments Alicia Barton, president and CEO of NYSERDA.