The utility says it needs to raise interconnection costs because of rapid growth, but battery developers argue it’s relying on misguided assumptions.
NY Assemblymember Claire Valdez speaks at a NineDot battery energy storage site in Brooklyn, NY.
By Mona Zhang, Politico Pro,
Everyone from Assemblymember Claire Valdez to Ice-T has weighed in on a dispute between battery storage developers and Con Edison, calling on the utility to end its “de facto” moratorium on their projects.
“We want Con Edison to allow more batteries into the grid so we can lower our bills,” Ice-T said in a Cameo video for the Utility Customers Association. “Con Edison, look into this and stop playin’.”
Ice-T may have jacked up his Cameo rates by more than 70 percent in recent years. But trade groups say that Con Ed increased interconnection costs for 34 battery storage projects by a whopping 1,300 percent, according to a January filing by the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium and the New York Solar Energy Industries Association.
The higher interconnection costs stem from Con Ed changing how it evaluates connecting battery projects to the grid late last year.
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