New York OKs Grid Tariff

As in California, the New York Public Service Commission has examined energy storage matters, endorsing an electric utility’s proposed tariff that permits large commercial batteries in New York City to feed the electric grid. In the same order, the commission also directed every electric utility in the state to study the impact of allowing battery storage systems to be exported to the grid under existing “dynamic load management” programs.

The tariff amendment had been proffered by Consolidated Edison Company of New York (ConEd). The utility said the terms were designed to facilitate the export of electricity discharged by battery storage systems for delivery to the company’s primary- or secondary-voltage distribution system at its direction during called demand response (DR) events. The initiative would be part of Con- Ed’s Brooklyn/Queens Demand Management (BQDM) Program.

Although accepting the tariff plan, the commission required the utility to include the export of battery power under the state’s Non-Wires Alternative (NWA) project endeavor. The commission expounded that NWA projects are critical to the goal of broadly transforming New York’s electric markets as contemplated in the state’s Reforming the Energy Vison policy.

According to the commission, ConEd ratepayers have already been saving money by reducing energy demand at peak hours. They likewise have benefitted by the utility’s deferral of construction of a $1 billion electrical substation. The commission conveyed that such deferral has been made possible because of the company’s reliance on nontraditional measures for meeting growing energy demand in Brooklyn and Queens.

The commission concluded that the new tariffs will enable utilities to gain experience with energy storage technology, thus setting the stage for wider applications, including the possibility of connecting electric vehicles to feed the grid as well. The commission further found that pursuant to the modified tariff, battery storage technologies that are anticipated to be added to the BQDM program for the 2017 and 2018 capability periods could export electricity onto the utility grid when there may be little or no usage at the battery owner’s site during a program event. In turn, the commission stated, that offers regulatory certainty to battery storage providers that their products will be allowed to participate in future NWA projects, provided that the utility has deemed such export to be safe.

The commission informed all of the state’s major electric utilities — ConEd, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation, New York State Electric & Gas Corporation, Niagara Mohawk Power Inc., and Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation — that they must study the impacts of allowing those distributed energy resources, including battery storage, currently participating in their respective dynamic load management programs to export their output into the primary and secondary distribution systems during called DR events. Re Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc., Case 17-E-0104, May 18, 2017 (N.Y.P.S.C.).