Dive Brief:

• New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, has issued nearly $15 million in funding to four long-duration energy storage demonstration projects, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, known as NYSERDA, announced Thursday.
• The grants include a $12 million award to Form Energy to develop and construct a 10 MW/1,000 MWh demonstration of a new long-duration storage technology that uses iron-air batteries to provide multiple days’ worth of power. The location for the project has not yet been chosen.
• New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, passed in 2019, sets the state on the pathway to 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040 and requires 40% of the state’s climate and energy funding to go to disproportionately disadvantaged communities. The act also implemented a goal to install 3,000 MW of energy storage in the state by 2030.

Dive Insight:

The grants will be administered by NYSERDA and support development of storage projects that can supply energy for at least 10 hours.

Form Energy’s project will be the first demonstration of its technology in New York, and the only multi-day battery storage project in the state at this point, according to the company. The company’s iron-air battery system uses low-cost iron, water and air to provide long-duration storage. Each battery module is roughly the size of a side-by-side washer-dryer set.

The NYSERDA grant is designed to support each development phase of the project and Form Energy’s first step will be to select a site for it, a company spokesperson said in an email. After this, the company will focus on getting the necessary permits, prepping the site and establishing interconnection. The project is expected to be online by 2026.

State awards like these help accelerate the deployment and expedite commercialization of emerging technologies, the spokesperson said. In addition, they can help federal, state and local governments learn first-hand what barriers may exist on the path to bringing new technologies to market, and design and evolve policies, regulations and incentives for faster market entry, they added.

Recently, the company put together an analysis of the New York Independent System Operator market and found that adding 35 GW of multi-day storage to the state’s mix of resources in 2040 would lead to the least-cost, decarbonized portfolio, potentially leading to system cost savings of almost 30%.

In addition to Form Energy, New York awarded $1.08 million to Ecolectro, which is working on polymer chemistry and materials with the aim to reduce the cost of hydrogen production using electrolysis. Ecolectro’s project is focused on building and testing 10-kW electrolysis units, which will be used in a pilot project with Liberty Utilities.

Another $1.03 million was provided to PolyJoule to deploy a 2 MWh, 167 kW long-duration battery storage system at one of Eastern Generation’s generating stations in Queens. The fourth grant, for $703,965, was awarded to Urban Electric Power to deploy a 100 kW/1 MWh battery system using zinc alkaline battery technology, which can provide 10 to 24 hours of storage at commercial and industrial facilities at Pearl River. 

New York state officials also announced $8.15 million in funding for other innovative long-duration project submissions, which focus on hydrogen, electric, chemical, mechanical or thermal storage technologies. 

“Increasing the state’s capacity to store wind and solar energy for increasing amounts of time is essential to meet our climate and clean energy goals, especially as more energy flows to the grid from renewable energy projects coming online,” Doreen Harris, NYSERDA president and CEO, said in a statement.