Residential and Retail Storage Incentives

NYSERDA offers incentives for grid-connected residential and commercial customers to install standalone energy storage or systems paired with a new or existing on-site renewable generation like solar, fuel cells, or combined heat and power.

How It Works

NYSERDA’s Residential and Retail Energy Storage Incentives are structured as fixed-rate incentives based on the storage systems capacity, measured in kilowatt hours (kWh). These incentives are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Incentives for all residential and retail storage projects are provided through a network of participating contractors approved under the Residential and Retail Energy Storage Incentive program who contract directly with the customer.

The program breaks out incentives geographically by sector and region in the Megawatt hour (MWh) Block Dashboards. Incentive details will be available on the Residential Energy Storage Incentive Dashboard and Retail Energy Storage Incentive Dashboard.

Residential Energy Storage Incentives

The Residential Energy Storage Incentives are available for contractors’ installing storage on a new or existing home in New York State. Incentives are available for up to 25 kWh of storage capacity. The Program Manual [PDF] provides a full list of project eligibility and requirements.

Contractors installing residential energy storage in PSEG Long Island are eligible to apply for the Long Island Single-Family Residential Storage Incentive which are governed through the NY-Sun Program Manual [PDF]. Contractors and Builders can apply for this program separately through the NYSERDA Portal .

Retail Energy Storage Incentives

The Retail Energy Storage Incentives are available for new commercial scale distributed (retail) energy storage projects up to 5 megawatts (MW) that are either located behind a customer’s electric meter or interconnected directly to the distribution network. Projects must provide value to a customer under an investor-owned utility rate, such as offsetting demand charges, participating in a utility demand response program, or receiving compensation under New York State’s value of distributed energy resources (VDER) tariff. The Program Manual [PDF] provides a full list of project eligibility and requirements.

For battery storage systems above five MW of AC power, projects could be eligible for incentives through the Bulk Energy Storage Program.

Additional details on both the Residential and Retail Energy Storage Incentive are available in the program manual [PDF]. 

How to Become an Energy Storage Participating Contractor

To become an energy storage participating contractor, you must submit an online contractor application . Contractors will be evaluated based on their experience, their customer references, and performance in this or other New York State or utility programs.

Before you start the online application, use this checklist [PDF] to guide you through the document requirements.

Once NYSERDA approves contractors, they will receive access to submit project applications online. All participating contractors will begin in provisional status until they establish a successful track record of projects under this program.

Download the program manual [PDF] for more information about the program and how to apply.