The largest lithium-ion battery installation in New York State history has been completed. Utility-scale battery storage developer Key Capture Energy said that its 20-megawatt project in Saratoga County is ready to improve grid reliability.
Called KCE NY 1, the project is the company’s first since relocating its headquarters from Houston to Albany last year, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA). This project is also the first under NYSERDA’s new energy storage incentive program.
“Energy storage enhances the efficiency of the electric grid by capturing excess power and storing that excess power in industrial-sized batteries for later use,” the public benefit corporation explained. “Key Capture Energy’s project will help balance electric load and generation by storing and discharging power based upon the changing needs of the grid.”
NYSERDA compared the battery installation’s support for the electric transmission system to that of some fossil fuel power plants, and added that the new project should help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In December, the New York Public Service Commission adopted Governor Andrew Cuomo’s goal for the state to reach 1,500 MW of energy storage by 2025 and 3,000 MW by 2030. This year Cuomo introduced incentives for energy storage projects that grow the industry while lowering the cost of deployment.
Cuomo’s energy storage targets are expected to avoid more than 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions and provide more than $3 billion in benefits to New Yorkers, according to NYSERDA.
The energy storage goals represent part of Cuomo’s Green New Deal climate change program, which the governor says “puts the state on a path to being entirely carbon-neutral across all sectors of the economy, including power generation, transportation, buildings, industry, and agriculture.”