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New York state signs law – 20% of USA has energy storage targets and mandates

NY Governor Cuomo has signed into law a bill (AB 6571) directing the state’s Public Service Commission to develop an Energy Storage Deployment Program, including a storage procurement target for 2030.

New York now becomes the fourth US state to have energy storage targets/mandates. California and Oregon have a mandate in place, while Massachusetts has set a law that dictates a target to be finalized shortly. South Australia turned on the world’s largest lithium ion battery just yesterday.

The program would be run by the New York Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA). The goals must be chosen by the end 2018. A link to a PDF of the letter signed by the Governor.

A NYSERDA spokesperson sent the following to Electrek to describe the process the legislation (A6571 ) will use to drive the state’s energy transition vision:

Under Governor Cuomo’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) strategy, New York has committed to accelerating the clean energy transition with promising technologies like energy storage by leveraging private investment through initiatives that maximize benefits and decrease ratepayer costs.  The bill as revised will remove the directive to establish an explicit deployment program with predetermined annual expenditures and instead direct the Public Service Commission to undertake a process to determine by December 31, 2018 the appropriate suite of policies that will help drive towards a long-term energy storage deployment goal. This process will be informed by NYSERDA’s forthcoming energy storage roadmap, which is already underway, and will look to market participants to consider mechanisms that will maximize the benefits of energy storage for New Yorkers consistent with the principles of REV.

As a condition of signing the bill, the Governor is requiring the state legislature in the next session to correct “provisions that are potentially inconsistent with the State’s Reforming the Energy Vision strategy, and fiscal burdens on state entities.”

The main aim of the law is to support New York’s 50%-by-2030 renewable portfolio standard and is modeled on the NY-Sun program launched by Gov. Cuomo in 2012.  The NY-Sun program:

  • committed $1 billion to stimulate the market for solar power over a 10-year period
  • aimed to add more than 3,000 MW of solar capacity in the state by 2023
  • achieved 181% rise in the state’s non-residential solar power market

This makes New York the second state in the Eastern US to adopt energy storage legislation to spur the industry – Massachusetts being the first and has set a goal of 200 MWh of energy storage by 2020. California’s 2020 goal is 1.3GW of energy storage, while Oregon has a goal of a minimum of 5MWh by 2020, with a 1% peak load cap on any utility using electricity moving through energy storage.

According to GTM Research, the state already has an energy storage pipeline of 240MW.

Electrek’s Take

California, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon represent 69 million people and 21% of the country. These people live in states that have legally defined energy storage to be integrated into the power grid. The politicians see the writing on the wall.

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