Epsilon Associates, Inc. recently attended the NY BEST-Capture the Energy Conference and Workshop held in Albany, New York. The three-day conference focused on development of utility scale battery energy storage system (BESS) across New York State and included a variety of regulatory and technical discussions on the siting, project development and operation of these facilities. Additional focus was placed on, the barriers and opportunities for implementation of wide-scale distributed BESS projects across the state.
Background: New York Energy Storage Roadmap
In 2019, New York passed the nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act), which codified some of the most aggressive energy and climate goals in the country, including 1,500 megawatts (MW) of energy storage by 2025 and 3,000 MW by 2030. In December 2022, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Department of Public Service (DPS) filed New York’s 6 gigawatt (GW) Energy Storage Roadmap to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for consideration. In March of 2024, NYSERDA and DPS filed an update to the Roadmap which examined program costs, wholesale capacity price forecasts and procurement considerations, among other matters.
Based on interconnection data and data collected by NYSERDA’s Retail and Bulk Energy Storage incentive programs since 1990, there is currently only 343 MWs of BESS currently in operation within NYS. The Roadmap update recommended that NYSERDA be authorized to procure a total of 3 GW of bulk storage projects over three annual procurements starting in 2024. This signals to the energy permitting community that there should be a cadence of due diligence and permitting activities to enable sufficient responses to these forthcoming procurements with viable projects.
Conference Key Takeaways
The NY BEST Pre-Conference Workshop focused on four main areas related to BESS siting and permitting and included speakers from industry leading organizations, legal counsel and the BESS development community. Topics included successful siting and permitting practices, emergency response planning and first responder training, fire safety and code overview, and ended with communicating benefits and addressing community concern. Within each session, attendees were able to ask questions to the panel of speakers. The result was jam-packed with lessons learned in this nascent industry.
Epsilon’s five key takeaways from the NY BEST Conference Workshop as it relates to BESS diligence, siting and permitting include:
- “Sprint at the beginning, not at the end” – Joe Tassone, Founder, Oncore Origination LLC, said it well when discussing project planning. Often, BESS site selection is highly dependent on nearby interconnection capacity. However, there are other factors that support a well-sited project. Early due diligence and portfolio assessment of potential BESS sites should take in consideration potential environmental/land use restrictions, permitting pathway, acoustic and visual impacts, and overall host community sentiment.
- Staying Local?: Land Use and Municipal Code Review – Standalone BESS is often not explicitly addressed in municipal code. While a zoning audit can be completed, when the code is silent, seek interpretation from environmental and regulatory professionals and/or the local community codes and planning departments. In many cases, new BESS projects may require a Special Use Permit. There are likely visual, acoustic, and other impacts that will have to be assessed and addressed during the local review. Local zoning bylaws and land use restrictions must be identified and incorporated into project design as practicable before advancing a project into the municipal review phase.
- BESS Moratoriums in New York – Some municipalities have begun to enact zoning-based moratoriums on energy-development projects including BESS facilities. These moratoriums serve the purpose to allow time to understand the technology, identify potential impacts on the community and enact regulations to address siting, construction and operation of these projects, many of which include emerging technologies. Navigating moratoriums is often a difficult and time-consuming process. There is a fine line to that balances completing preliminary due diligence and site viability based on what is currently known in the codes and applicable regulations, and closely monitoring moratorium conclusions and related land use or code changes that may impact a project.
- Fire Safety and Code Changes – Battery energy storage systems are a critical component to achieving a reliable, zero-emissions grid. The NYS Inter-Agency Fire Safety Working Group was formed to ensure the safety and security of energy storage systems across the state. Currently, the NYS Inter-Agency Fire Safety Working is reviewing existing state codes, standards and regulations associated with BESS installation and operation. Additional changes around fire department training, emergency response and code adoption are anticipated in 2024 should formal code adoption conclude.
- Comprehensive Emergency Response Planning and Procedure – A large focus on BESS development and operation is in the Emergency Response Procedure (ERP). This is critical to successful BESS permitting as well. Addressing community concern is in part achieved when information about BESS operation and emergency response plans are shared with community leaders, agency reviewers and first responders. ERP’s are often BESS owner/operator specific. Erika Nelson, Director of Project Operations, Key Capture Energy, provided an overview of what a model ERP could include, and expanded on traditional ERPs’ focus of fire response to encourage the BESS development community to focus on providing more comprehensive response plan that addresses extreme weather, seismic events, cybersecurity, physical breach, among others.