Dive Brief:

• Consolidated Edison has filed a $7.6 million energy storage demonstration project with New York regulators that will see it partner with NRG Energy to develop a 1 MW, 4 MWh mobile storage system.

• The Storage on Demand project will allow the utility to deploy the batteries to different locations in New York City according to distributions system needs. When not deployed, the batteries will be housed at a generating station to provide power to and services to wholesale electricity markets.

• The demonstration project is part of New York State’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) program that aims to remake the state’s regulatory model.​ ConEd will pay the capital costs of the storage assets and retain full ownership and will pay NRG a mobility option premium for operating and maintaining the units when they stored at NRG’s Astoria power plant.

Dive Insight:

ConEd is testing out business models for energy storage and other forms of distributed resources under New York’s REV program.

In December the utility installed a microgrid as part of the Queens-Brooklyn Neighborhood Program, which aims to defer investment in more costly grid investments.

In January the utility filed a proposal with the state’s Public Service Commission for a program that would pay customers for hosting batteries through leases.

In the most recent project, ConEd would deploy mobile storage devices to alleviate system congestion and defer investments in equipment upgrades such as new substations.

When not deployed by ConEd, the storage devices, mounted on two tractor trailer trucks, would participate in the state’s wholesale power market by contributing to the day-ahead and real-time markets and by providing frequency regulation and operating reserves.

NRG will partner with LG Chem and Greensmith to design, build and deliver the storage devices, with LG Chem supplying the batteries and equipment and Greensmith as the integration manager and provider the energy management system.

ConEd plans to launch the project in the second quarter, and it is scheduled to last through first quarter 2021. If successful, the utility anticipates the project could result in the future roll out of a larger scale program that could provide grid benefits both within and outside of its service territory.

ConEd says it does not expect to break even on the project with batteries at current costs. Instead, the utility says it will test “key REV hypotheses” and that, with “the declining cost curve for battery storage, the business model may represent a sustainable, low-cost investment for reliability once allocated across multiple utility solutions over the life of the asset.”

“Battery storage technology is advancing quickly and can provide us with another tool to keep our service reliable on the days our customers need it the most,” Matthew Ketschke, ConEd's vice president for distributed resource Integration, said in a statement.