Home » New York

New York Pledges 3 GW Of Energy Storage By 2030

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

When New York announces clean energy goals, they do it in the only way the Empire State knows how to do anything: They do it big.

So it was when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his latest bid to reclaim New York’s leadership in the clean energy push that’s sweeping through the Northeast, calling for 3 GW of energy storage to be added to the state’s grid by 2030.

“As the federal government continues to ignore the real and imminent dangers of climate change, New York is aggressively pursuing clean energy alternatives to protect our environment and conserve resources,” Governor Cuomo said in a press release. “These unprecedented energy efficiency and energy storage targets will set a standard for the rest of the nation to follow, while supporting and creating jobs in these cutting-edge renewable industries.”

[wds id=”3″]

In June, Governor Cuomo announced the State’s plan to jumpstart the development of energy storage in New York, calling for the deployment of 1,500 megawatts of energy storage by 2025, or enough electricity for 1.2 million average sized homes, while avoiding more than one million tons of carbon pollution.

To achieve the Governor’s goal, the Commission today adopted a comprehensive strategy to address barriers that have been impeding energy storage technologies from competing in the energy marketplace. These actions are intended to accelerate the market learning curve, drive down costs, and speed the deployment of the highest-value energy storage projects for maximum benefit to New Yorkers and the electric grid.

In addition to the 2025 goal, a secondary energy storage deployment goal of 3,000 megawatts for 2030 is being adopted, which was called for pursuant to legislation signed into law last year by Governor Cuomo. When implemented, the strategy adopted by the Commission today will establish a critical foundation for the emergence of this clean-tech industry across the state and support New York’s goal to create 30,000 jobs in this industry.

To further stimulate energy storage deployment across the state and spur private sector investment, earlier this week, New York Power Authority (NYPA) announced it will invest $250 million over the next five years to accelerate the flexibility of the electric grid to give New Yorkers greater access to renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power. This multi-pronged, collaborative effort by NYPA will harness the abilities of third-party providers to address key market and financial barriers, and accelerate implementation of 150 megawatts of grid flexibility projects and decrease market risk.

Both Commission actions today are the result of extensive public outreach, numerous public hearings, regional forums, active stakeholder engagement, and public comment review.

The Commission order also:

Authorizes a $310 million market acceleration bridge incentive to be administered by NYSERDA, in addition to $40 million announced in November for pairing storage with PV projects, and directs NYSERDA to file a market acceleration bridge incentive implementation plan; and
Directs the State’s six major electric utilities to hold competitive procurements for 350 megawatts of bulk-sited energy storage systems.

As more renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar, are brought online, energy storage will enhance efficiency of the electric grid to better integrate these variable resources. Importantly, energy storage will also enable these resources to meet periods of peak demand. Achieving the 2025 energy storage target will produce $2 billion in gross lifetime benefits to New Yorkers by reducing the reliance on costly, dirty and inefficient energy infrastructure, while also helping to scale up the clean energy industry.

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.

GI Energy Files Objection To Confusing New York Energy Storage Rules

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

New York has developed something of an inferiority complex about its renewable energy and storage market. They ceded leadership first to New Jersey, then Vermont (yes, VERMONT, of all places) and now Massachusetts gets the majority of headlines in the Northeast.

So New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, no shy retiring flower himself, has made it his life mission to seize back the headlines from his fellow Northeastern states by setting aggressive goals for both renewable energy and storage growth – and he’s not hesitant to tell anyone who is listening how fantastic his plan is going to be.

And make no mistake, Cuomo’s plan is ambitious, particularly for energy storage. Starting from zero, Cuomo has pledged to reach 1,500 MW of energy storage and put out a plan in June that would set a target at double that.

But what Cuomo seems to forget is that the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly and often painfully, and according to at least one company that desperately wants to participate in New York’s energy storage boom is objecting to the rules as they are now in place, saying they make it impossible for third-party storage projects to compete.

[wds id=”3″]

Our friends at Microgrid Knowledge have the details of GI Energy’s complaints:

Because third parties are unable to price their projects properly, they face an uneven playing field, GI Energy argues.

“And, “perhaps most confounding of all,” GI Energy writes, utilities can deem their own energy storage projects as grid assets subject to no delivery bills while third party projects are treated as new retail accounts that are billed for delivery” — as if they were any other commercial behind the meter service.

As a result, what could be the single biggest operating expense for energy storage developers remains undefined in New York, the filing states.”

How can third-party storage projects compete when they’re not sure how much the utility is going to charge them for the delivery? No, we have no idea either.

These and other rules are going to have to be hashed out right quick if New York is going to be any sort of significant player in the energy storage market, and New York is going to have to address complaints like those of GI Energy if they want to stay ahead of their Northeastern neighbors in this new race to the top.

More:

Barrier to Energy Storage in New York?

New York’s Joins The Energy Storage Race With Its Biggest Lithium Ion Battery Project

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

New York has found itself behind its fellow Northeastern states when it comes to joining the solar revolution. New Jersey took the early lead, but now Vermont and Massachusetts are coming on strong, and the Empire State has found itself struggling to make news on its own.

Well, at least outside of its … exuberant governor who is always talking a good game but has little to show for it to date. That may, however, be changing, as Key Capture Energy and NEC Energy Solutions announced they are teaming up on a 20 MW battery storage project in Saratoga County.

The project, called KCE NY 1 is a key part of the next generation of the state’s electric grid and will enhance the power grid’s performance and reliability with reduced carbon emissions, while promoting economic and job growth in upstate New York.

[wds id=”3″]

KCE’s NY 1 project is the largest lithium-ion battery storage project in New York State and supports Governor Cuomo’s commitment for New York State to reach 1,500 MW of energy storage by 2025. In Governor Cuomo’s 2018 State of State Address, it was recognized that in addition to providing roughly $2 billion in gross benefits and avoiding more than one million metric tons of CO2 emissions, by 2030 New York’s energy storage industry could employ approximately 30,000.

It also supports New York State’s Energy Storage Roadmap, which was released in June and developed by the Department of Public Service (DPS) and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) with input from numerous stakeholders such as Key Capture Energy. The Roadmap identifies near-term recommendations for how energy storage can deliver value to New York electricity consumers and cost-effectively address the needs and demands of the grid.

Additionally, energy storage can help achieve the aggressive Clean Energy Standard goal of getting 50% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030, while at the same time ensuring that carbon is reduced by 40% compared to 1990 levels. This announcement marks an important example of the ever evolving energy landscape in New York State.

New York Prepares To Go Full Speed Ahead With Energy Storage Goals

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) has taken the next step toward reaching its energy storage goals when it accepted the environmental review report connected to the state’s Energy Storage Roadmap.

The roadmap, announced with great fanfare by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, envisions 1.5 GW of storage installed in the state over the next seven years. The NYPSC has undertaken steps to make that goal a reality in the most effective, environmentally friendly way possible.

According to a release announcing its acceptance of the environmental review, the NYPSC says the goal means that nearly one-fifth of New York households could have energy storage once the 1.5 GW is installed.

[wds id=”3″]

“Energy storage is not only crucial to achieving our goal of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030, it will improve the resiliency of the grid as we face extreme weather events and other emergency situations,” said Commission Chair John B. Rhodes. “With this step, we continue to advance the deployment of energy storage, in line with the target of 1,500 MW deployed by 2025.”

Under the state’s Environmental Quality Review Act, the NYPSC had to conduct the review whose findings it accepted. It found a number of positive effects assocaited with the roadmap thanks to the reductions of peak-load demand, increased grid efficiency and the displacement of fossil-fuel based generation. These outcomes would result, the report said, in improved economic, health and environmental benefits.

At the same time, the negative effects are negligible.

According to the release, the benefits may include:

Creation of approximately 30,000 jobs associated with energy storage research and development, development, manufacturing, installation and other support services;
Mitigation of the impacts of climate change from approximately 2 million metric tons of avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and
Improvement in public health from avoided emissions of criteria air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM2.5). To the extent that these avoided air emissions occur from the displacement of peaker plants located in Potential Environmental Justice Areas (PEJAs), the associated benefits may accrue to these vulnerable communities.

New York’s Governor Cuomo has made renewable energy one of the hallmarks of his time in office, and while New York still lags behind California (and doesn’t even make the Solar Energy Industries Association’s list of Top 10 Solar States), aggressive targets like this are what will get them back into the game and put their renewable energy future on par with its New England cohort. States like Massachusetts and New Jersey await its arrival.