NEC and developer Kearsage Energy have completed work on a 4.5MW solar PV array, combined with a 1.6MW / 2.8MWh AC-coupled battery energy storage system in Amesbury, Massachusetts.

A 6MW / 48MWh battery energy storage system paired to a 15MW diesel generator has gone online on Nantucket, in what has been described by project owner National Grid as the biggest system in New England to date.

The recent flurry of energy storage project announcements from Massachusetts have been driven in part by a “common sense” approach to tackling the dirtiest impacts of fossil fuel generation, Energy-Storage.news has heard from industry figures.

New four-project portfolio heralds the emergence of New England’s solar-plus-storage industry after years of “behind-the-scenes” activity, firm says.

Revisions aimed at enabling energy storage’s participation in wholesale markets, proposed by New England’s Independent System Operator (ISO) have been accepted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), effective 1 April this year.

Solar-plus-storage systems in ordinary households will provide 20MW of energy capacity in New England, with Sunrun announcing the award of a contract from the state’s ISO (independent system operator).

Transmission system operators in the US have begun making their moves to accommodate energy storage into their wholesale markets, with New England ISO and Southwest Power Pool both making filings in the past month.

A solar power plant owned by Vermont utility Green Mountain Power saved the utility’s quarter of a million customers US$200,000 in one hour by drastically reducing peak demand.