As COVID-19 wreaks havoc in our collective world and we socially isolate to flatten the curve, “everything works – and will continue to work – as long as we have electricity. It’s what keeps the lights on, the oxygen flowing, the information going. Everything is the grid, the grid, the grid,” said Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal on March 19, 2020. As New York’s Governor Cuomo champions his state’s response to the virus in a historic fashion, he had earlier laid the groundwork to ground-breaking energy storage initiatives.
On December 13, 2019, Governor Cuomo announced energy storage initiatives that “will provide enough electricity for 1.2 million homes and produce $2 billion in benefits to New Yorkers.” “As the federal government continues to ignore the real and imminent dangers of climate change, New York is aggressively pursuing clean energy alternatives to protect our environment and conserve resources,” Governor Cuomo said. “These unprecedented energy efficiency and energy storage targets will set a standard for the rest of the nation to follow, while supporting and creating jobs in these cutting-edge renewable industries.”
Long-duration energy storage is no longer a pipe dream or the machinations of a few pilot programs. It is a mandated objective of the Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Green New Deal to build out 3 GW of energy storage capacity by 2030. The planets have aligned to sustain a complete energy storage solution to support the renewable energy and electric vehicle industries, which demand the need for the rapid development of automotive and mass storage batteries. Long-duration energy storage allows energy producers to send excess electricity over the electricity transmission grid to provisional electricity storage sites that become energy suppliers when electricity demand is greater.
Our company’s (Zinc8 Energy Solutions) contract award and project collaboration with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and private sector deployment agreement with Digital Energy supported by NYSERDA, both help advance Governor Cuomo’s Green New Deal by achieving the aggressive energy storage goal and by supporting a nation-leading commitment of 100% electricity from emission-free sources by 2040.
This dramatic change demands the active leadership of New York’s energy powerbrokers. William Acker, Executive Director of an event the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium believes that New York State can be a global leader in energy storage technology, including applications in grid storage, transportation and power electronics.
“New York State is actively pursuing commercially ready technologies that will help grow a clean energy economy and improve the reliability, efficiency and overall performance of our electric power delivery system,” said Acker.
Governor Cuomo has been a vocal proponent of energy storage sector in general realizing its important role in reducing costs, protecting the environment and improving the resilience and strength of the state’s infrastructure in the face of natural disasters and other emergencies. He has invested in new battery technologies and energy storage systems, which are helping to develop working prototypes that demonstrate the ability of these advanced energy systems to harden the state’s electric grid and diversify transportation fuel.
As an energy storage company CEO, I and the whole team at Zinc8 Energy Solutions, applaud Governor Cuomo for his tireless actions in developing an electrifying roster of talent that is diligently working to implement the benefits of grid management solutions in New York State.
