The New York Department of Public Service this week issued the second State of Storage' annual report announcing progress in reaching New York State's statewide energy storage goal of 3,000 megawatts by 2030, with an interim objective of deploying 1,500 MW by 2025.

"The development and introduction of energy storage will build flexibility into the grid and advance Governor Cuomo's ambitious clean energy goals," said Department CEO John B. Howard. "Today's report demonstrates the tremendous success New York is having toward meeting the country's largest energy storage target."

On December 13, 2018, the Public Service Commission established a statewide energy storage goal of installing up to 3,000 MW of qualified energy storage systems by 2030, with an interim objective of deploying 1,500 MW by 2025. The Commission also adopted a suite of energy storage deployment policies and actions to achieve these goals.

The Commission's energy storage deployment policy has effectively strengthened the market for developing and installing qualified energy storage systems in New York State. Total deployed or awarded/contracted projects at the end of 2020 equals 1,186 MW in capacity, or about 79 percent of the 2025 target of 1,500 MW and 40 percent of the 2030 target of 3,000 MW. The number of energy storage projects in various interconnection queues, which reflects some of the awarded/contracted projects noted above as well as potential projects in the pipeline, also indicates robust activity in the industry. Over 8,000 MW of energy storage projects are presently in New York utility interconnection queues and the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) interconnection queue, though it is possible that not all of these projects would get built by 2030.

Due to the technology's declining costs and the ability to pair with solar photovoltaic systems and capture those additional revenue streams, energy storage use cases continue to include augmenting the existing pipeline of solar PV projects being developed in the state. These types of projects that combine energy storage with solar PV and use a Community Distributed Generation (CDG) configuration reported installed costs as low as $300-$400 per kilowatt hour in 2020. Bulk-level projects above 5 MW that intend to provide wholesale market services averaged installed costs of $372 per kWh in 2020. Soft costs, such as customer or site acquisition, project siting, interconnection, and financing, averaged 20 percent of total installed costs for CDG-paired energy storage, a decline from 30 percent last year.

Source: New York State