PURA establishes new energy storage program

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Eversource’s battery facility in Provincetown, Mass., will help the coastal community keep the power on if it loses connection to the central power grid.

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By Zachary Vasile

The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority today rolled out the terms of a nine-year electricity storage program designed to reduce the cost of buying and installing a storage system for customers of Eversource Energy and United Illuminating Co.

PURA officials have focused on increased storage capacity as a means to improve the resiliency of Connecticut’s power grid, which had been called into question due to outages stemming from particularly destructive weather events such as Tropical Storm Isaias in August of 2020.

The program is expected to include a benefit to residential customers of around $250 per kilowatt-hour, with a maximum per-project incentive of $7,500. Commercial and industrial customers would be eligible for upfront incentives, with a maximum of 50% of a project’s cost.

Customers could also receive performance benefits based on the power an electric storage project contributes to the grid during especially critical periods.

Additional incentives will be made available for ratepayers who could benefit the most from added power resiliency measures, including low-income customers, customers in underserved communities, small businesses and households in areas that are particularly prone to long or frequent outages during and after storms.

The program will be administered by the Connecticut Green Bank in cooperation with Eversource and United Illuminating. The final version of the nine-year plan will commence Jan. 1, 2022 and run through at least Dec. 31, 2030, PURA officials said.