The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has launched a programme to incentivise residential and retail energy storage in the state, offering a total of US$775 million for energy storage projects.
According to NYSERDA’s programme opportunity notice (PON) for the incentives programme, US$675 million is available for retail energy storage projects and US$100 million for residential energy storage projects.
The Residential and Retail Energy Storage Market Acceleration Incentives Programme was authorised by the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) in a June 2024 order.
From NYSERDA, the programme “provides financial incentives for the installation of new grid-connected distributed residential and nonresidential energy storage systems by participating contractors.”
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Incentives are available on a first-come, first-served basis and are structured as a fixed rate per kWh of system energy capacity.
NYSERDA also explains that the storage systems can be standalone or paired with a new or existing ‘clean’ on-site generation.
For residential installations, incentives are available for up to 25kWh of storage capacity, while retail installations can receive incentives for up to 5MW of storage capacity. The authority stipulates that the projects must be new, permanent and stationary.
The programme further specifies that projects awarded incentives must provide value to a customer through an investor-owned utility (IOU) or New York State Independent System Operator (NYISO) tariff.
This can be done by offsetting demand charges, receiving compensation through the New York State value of distributed energy resources (VDER) tariff or participating in NYISO’s distributed energy resource (DER) and aggregation participation model.
The VDER tariff, or the Value Stack, allocates values according to energy, capacity, environmental advantages, demand reduction, and locational system relief. The New York Public Service Commission provides compensation as bill credits.
Energy storage developers such as NineDot, which recently announced a US$65 million equipment financing for 20 energy storage projects across New York City, use the Value Stack to monetise community storage.
In addition to encouraging distributed energy storage installations, the New York PSC recently approved the draft Bulk Energy Storage Program Implementation Plan filed by NYSERDA, which supports grid-scale energy storage facilities.
New York has a goal of achieving 6GW of energy storage by 2030. In 2024, The New York PSC approved a state roadmap to reach this target.
Governor Kathy Hochul announced the approval and a competitive solicitation for onshore renewable energy resources, held by NYSERDA, on the same day.
Contractor applications for the Residential and Retail Energy Storage Market Acceleration Incentives Programme opened on 22 April.
Retail energy storage project applications will open on 20 May; retail energy storage project applications submitted by 10 June will be re-ordered based on the date of full utility interconnection deposit, and the residential energy storage application will open the same day.
