PowerBank Locks Lease for NY Solar-Battery Project

• Canada’s PowerBank lands a Conklin Hill Road site lease in upstate New York for a 5‑MW solar + battery project, targeting NYSERDA incentives as it advances interconnection and permitting.

PowerBank, a Canada-based developer, secured a site lease in upstate New York for a 5-MWac community solar plus battery storage project. The facility, dubbed NY–Conklin Hill Rd, combines solar with BESS to support a hybrid distributed-energy model.

The company said it will pursue eligibility for New York State Energy Research and Development Authority incentives, including NY-Sun and the Retail Storage Incentive Programme. PowerBank has started preliminary interconnection studies and plans to proceed with permitting and financing after obtaining grid connection approval, enabling the system to feed power into the local grid and provide bill credits to residential and commercial community subscribers.

What incentives and interconnection steps will PowerBank pursue for its 5-MWac NY project?

• Incentives PowerBank is likely to pursue (NY)
• NYSERDA clean-energy incentive eligibility review for solar and standalone/paired storage applications (including program-specific “stacking” rules, where permitted)
• NY-Sun program participation/qualification for the solar portion, subject to project size limits, performance requirements, and documentation deadlines
• Retail Storage Incentive Programme participation for the BESS component, including confirmation that the battery dispatch/use case meets the program’s intended load and grid-service parameters
• Coordination with utility and aggregator/community-subscriber requirements needed to qualify for bill crediting and incentive compliance
• Identification of any additional state or utility-adjacent grants/technical assistance that may be available for community solar + storage projects (as they open or are made applicable to the project class)
• Interconnection steps PowerBank will pursue for the 5-MWac facility
• Confirm the correct interconnection pathway and study queue with the relevant NY utility (based on feeder/zone and project location)
• Submit a formal interconnection request package and identify the interconnection point(s) and point of common coupling (PCC)
  
• Complete preliminary engineering and power-flow screening to validate size, voltage level, and expected export/import behavior
• Perform system impact studies as required (commonly including short-circuit and stability/voltage-impact evaluations) to quantify needed protections and grid impacts
  
• Develop and propose an interconnection protection and control scheme for the solar+BESS hybrid configuration (anti-islanding, frequency/voltage ride-through where required, communications, and intertie settings)
• Define operating mode requirements for the battery (dispatch limits, ramp rates, state-of-charge operational constraints) so interconnection and grid-code requirements are met
  
• Secure the interconnection agreement and negotiate responsibility for required grid upgrades, including any utility-owned facilities and metering upgrades
• After approval, complete final design, equipment settings, and field commissioning plans aligned with the approved interconnection requirements
• Schedule and complete meter installation/testing, interconnection commissioning, and “permission to operate” steps needed before commercial operation
• Establish ongoing compliance processes (monitoring, reporting, and any periodic witness/verification) tied to the interconnection agreement and performance obligations