During the summer of 2024, Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R) and Sunrun, a home solar panel and battery storage company, successfully launched New York’s largest residential power plant, connecting over 300 solar-plus-storage systems to O&R’s electric grid. The network of solar-powered homes has begun delivering power to the grid, kicking off a 10-year trial run for the solar-plus-storage systems. 

The New York State Public Service Commission approved the REV demonstration project, which was initiated by O&R and is managed by Sunrun. This initiative aims to enhance grid stability during peak-demand hours and assess the value of aggregate behind-the-meter energy resources in achieving New York State’s climate goals, including milestones in renewable energy and community-scale energy storage. Sunrun oversees the dispatch of participating batteries to deliver power produced by the solar panels during peak-demand hours, typically between 5 and 7 pm. O&R calls on Sunrun to dispatch the batteries, and Sunrun in turn virtually controls the network of batteries to respond to load demand. O&R will dispatch the energy from the batteries primarily for peak summer load reduction purposes on O&R’s system. In addition to using the virtual power plant for demand response, O&R will explore the possibility of bidding the aggregate of batteries into the wholesale energy market. By the summer of 2024, 325 O&R customers enrolled in the program, contributing around 2MW of aggregated capacity which was called on 18 times to provide electricity to the grid.  

O&R opened the program to customers installing Sunrun solar panels. Customers enrolled in the program received either a free LG Chem battery pack or a discounted Tesla Powerwall. The batteries will always maintain a buffer of at least 20% of available energy for residential customers to use as backup power. If a home participating in the program loses power from the grid, all energy stored in the battery would be available for use by the home. 

Earlier this year, New York achieved its goal of 6 GW of installed distributed solar, a year ahead of schedule. However, significant efforts are still required to meet the state’s broader climate goals, which include generating 70% of electricity from renewable sources and 6,000 megawatts of installed energy storage by 2030. This project is still in its early phases, but so far it has demonstrated how proper alignment of customer incentives and a collaborative partnership between stakeholders can unlock grid flexibility. 

If you are interested in learning more about the Rooftop Solar/Battery Backup Pilot Project, please reach out to Christian Woods ([email protected]), the project manager at O&R.