On December 28th, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) released the highly anticipated 6 GW Energy Storage Roadmap (the Roadmap), the agency's plan for expanded deployment of battery energy storage systems in the state.  

With the state facing a statutory requirement to reach 100% renewable energy use by 2040, and plans to electrify almost every aspect of the state's economy by 2050 (more about that here), the need for battery energy storage systems is expected to skyrocket over the next ten years. The Roadmap in fact estimates that about 12 GW of energy storage will be needed by 2040, and a total of 17 GW will be needed by 2050. This is a substantial increase over the 130 MW currently installed and in use in the state.  

The Roadmap calls for: 

• 3,000 MW of new bulk storage, to be procured through a new competitive Index Storage Credit mechanism, similar to the Index REC contracts currently in use for large-scale renewable energy projects (including on-shore and off-shore wind)
• 1,500 MW of new retail storage, and 200 MW of new residential storage, to be supported through an expansion of NYSERDA's existing region-specific block incentive programs; and
• Prioritization of research and development related to reliable long-duration energy storage technologies.

To comply with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the Roadmap also calls for 35% of program funding to support projects that deliver benefits to Disadvantaged Communities, largely through targeting fossil fuel peaker plant emissions reductions. The Roadmap also continues NY's practice of requiring prevailing wage to be paid to workers on projects greater than 1 MW in size.

The Roadmap is currently open for public comment, and will thereafter need to be approved by the Public Service Commission. The length of the public comment period has not been announced, but we can expect it to last for 45-60 days. We will also likely see a webinar from NYSERDA to go over the program in some detail, and perhaps also a technical conference on some key issues in the proposal.  Companies in this space should read the proposal thoroughly and be active in the public comment period, as the PSC considers the comments from the public carefully and can incorporate changes to the proposal in their final approval.