By Natalie Hildt Treat, Director of Public Policy

Because of the myriad of benefits that energy storage systems (ESS) can provide—mitigating peak electric demand, adding resilience to the grid, and of course supporting the deployment of renewable sources like wind and solar—several states in the Northeast have been focused on creating policy frameworks that encourage the types of projects that will support public policy goals.

New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and most recently Rhode Island are among the states that have implemented policies and/or programs intended to support ESS deployment, and are counting on significant and varied storage resources in the coming years as a key part of the clean energy transition. 

Complimenting state policies and programs must be the approval of reasonable and predictable federal tariffs for large front-of-the-meter storage projects—vital to advance state progress on clean energy goals and greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments.

The Alliance for Climate Transition (ACT) and more than a dozen leading energy storage developers met in parallel processes with the major electric utilities in Connecticut and Massachusetts over the past year and a half to understand each other's concerns and needs in the development of  front-of-the-meter wholesale distribution service tariffs for energy storage projects. 

Over this period of time, key personnel at Eversource, National Grid, United Illuminating and Unitil listened and worked with developers to better understand planned use of the electric system, as well as the benefits storage can provide. 

Since August, three of those four investor-owned utilities have filed wholesale storage tariffs with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). On the whole, the collaborative efforts with Connecticut and Massachusetts utilities have led to tariff filings that ACT’s storage members find reasonable, with the exception of some targeted recommendations we are making to FERC as they consider how to rule on these proposals.

To review filings and ACT’s comments, see Eversource dockets ER24-3153 and ER24-3154; National Grid dockets ER24-2795-000 and ER24-2796-000; and docket ER24-2939-000 for Unitil, on FERC’s eLibrary. 

To learn more about our engagement in state storage policy making across the region members are invited to join our Solar & Storage Working Group, which meets monthly. Email ntreat@joinact.org.