Con Edison, SunPower partners on 4MWh solar + battery storage project in New York

Con Edison and SunPower has partnered on a pilot project to offer solar power systems with battery storage to more than 300 New York homeowners.

Hundreds of homes with solar power and battery storage will provide the utility with a cost-effective and innovative “virtual power plant,” and homeowners with a backup system in case of an outage. It will also complement the traditional energy delivery model to improve grid resiliency, reliability and sustainability.

The virtual power plant integrates over 1.8 megawatts of solar power and about 1.8 megawatts, or 4 megawatt hours, of battery storage.

The $15 million project is the result of New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative, designed to harness and integrate renewables into the state’s power grid.

SunPower in a statement said under the program, qualified participants have leased SunPower solar systems installed on their homes to help reduce the homeowners’ monthly electricity costs. For an additional low monthly payment, participants also have Sunverge Energy battery systems, owned by Con Edison, installed and connected to their SunPower systems.

Using the storage system’s intelligence, Con Edison will be able to link the hundreds of solar-plus-storage systems together into a “virtual power plant” that can act as a local generation resource to supply power to the grid during peak usage periods. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) integration will provide remote monitoring and control, allowing Con Edison to forecast and optimize the performance and reduce the need for the utility to rely on traditional non-renewable power sources to meet peak demand.

“The integrated solar and storage approach enhances value to the grid by providing a dispatchable renewable power source that Con Edison can control and rely on in real time,” said Matthew Ketschke, Con Edison’s vice president of Distributed Resource Integration. “We are excited to offer customers high performance SunPower systems for no upfront cost, and a cheaper, greener, simpler alternative to a traditional backup generator.”

“This ambitious program with Con Edison represents a significant milestone in U.S. energy delivery, demonstrating that combining solar and energy storage can result in a stronger, more resilient grid while providing end customers the opportunity to save on electricity bills,” said Howard Wenger, SunPower president, business units.  “Increasingly, SunPower is working with forward-thinking utilities to integrate advanced energy solutions and enable the transition to a more sustainably powered world.”