New York commits another $280M for energy storage

April 26, 2019, by Renewable Energy World Editors

This week New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that $280 million of support is available for energy storage projects.

This funding, announced during Earth Week, is part of a $400 million investment to achieve New York’s nation-leading energy storage deployment target of 3,000 MW by 2030, and supports Governor Cuomo’s Green New Deal, a clean energy and jobs agenda that puts New York State on a path to a carbon-neutral economy.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) Market Acceleration Bridge Incentive Program will help incentivize approximately two-thirds of the State’s 1,500-megawatt target of energy storage by 2025, supporting a self-sustaining market for the State. Funding is available in two categories:

• $150 million for bulk storage projects: systems over five megawatts that primarily provide wholesale market energy or distribution services
• $130 million for retail storage projects: customer-sited systems below five megawatts, which are smaller and installed alone or paired with onsite generation such as solar

Support for retail storage projects will be distributed through the Retail Energy Storage Incentive Program, a megawatt-hour block system, which is similar in design to the State’s NY-Sun Megawatt Block program.

The Retail Energy Storage Incentive Program is divided into two regions: New York City and the rest of the state, excluding Long Island. Incentive amounts are assigned to each region and then decrease over time based on market activity by sector and region. Incentives are offered on a first come, first served basis and are calculated on the usable installed energy storage capacity in kilowatt hours. Incentives remain available until all blocks within a region/sector are fully subscribed.

Bulk storage projects have two options to receive incentive funding: A fixed incentive amount, which will decline each year through 2025, or through a utility bulk storage RFP, which will be issued later this year. Projects may only receive funding in one incentive category.

In addition to the $280 million available today, another $70 million will be allocated by NYSERDA in the future based on opportunities that have the greatest potential to support a self-sustaining storage market. An additional $53 million in Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative funds will be made available later this year for retail and bulk storage projects specifically located on Long Island.

NYSERDA will host a webinar on May 2nd for those interested in the bulk incentives and a second webinar on May 3rd for those interested in the retail incentives.

According to a recent report by the American Jobs Project, New York is home to nearly 100 energy storage companies with expertise in hardware manufacturing, advanced materials, software development and project management, and ranks fifth in the nation for energy storage patents due to the depth of research across its universities, national lab and businesses. The report found that 3,450 people were employed in the energy storage industry in New York, generating nearly $1 billion in annual revenue.

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