NYSERDA Awards 950 MW of Battery Storage in New York’s First Bulk Solicitation

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority said on September 23, 2026 that it has signed contracts for eight grid-scale battery storage projects totaling 950 megawatts, the first awards to come out of the state’s inaugural Bulk Energy Storage solicitation. The winning projects were chosen from 46 bids that together offered nearly 6 gigawatts of capacity, making the competition roughly six times oversubscribed.

The eight contracted systems are spread across New York City, Long Island, the Hudson Valley and western New York, and range in discharge duration from four to eight hours, according to NYSERDA. The agency said the projects would deliver more than $127 million in economic benefits to disadvantaged communities, as defined by the state’s Climate Justice Working Group, and were announced alongside contracts for 13 large-scale renewable generation projects as part of a combined 1.7-gigawatt clean energy package.

A Fraction of a Much Larger Target

The 950 MW awarded so far represents a small share of what New York has committed to build. Governor Kathy Hochul set a target of 6 gigawatts of energy storage by 2030 in 2022, doubling an original 3 GW goal written into the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The New York Public Service Commission approved a roadmap to reach that expanded target in June 2024, estimating it could cut future statewide electric system costs by nearly $2 billion by allowing the grid to store cheap renewable power and discharge it during peak demand instead of relying on gas-fired peaker plants.

NYSERDA’s bulk storage solicitation, issued in July 2025 under reference ISCRFP25-1, is one of the main procurement vehicles the state is using to hit that number. The agency said it plans to launch a second annual Bulk Energy Storage RFP by the end of 2026, working toward a cumulative goal of 3 GW of bulk storage procured across three solicitations.

Why Duration and Location Matter

The four-to-eight-hour discharge range on the newly contracted projects is longer than the two-to-four-hour lithium-ion systems that have dominated early US grid storage deployments. Longer-duration storage is better suited to covering the evening and early-morning hours when solar output drops but demand remains high, a gap regulators in several US states have flagged as a growing reliability concern as more intermittent renewable capacity comes online. Spreading the eight projects across four distinct regions, rather than concentrating them near New York City alone, is also intended to relieve transmission congestion in a state where NYSERDA and grid operator NYISO have both warned that constrained power lines are slowing the broader clean energy buildout.

Part of a Bigger Compliance Push

The storage awards were bundled with contracts for 13 renewable energy projects under New York’s Clean Energy Standard, the state’s mechanism for procuring the wind, solar and other zero-carbon generation needed to meet its CLCPA targets, including 70% renewable electricity by 2030. Taken together, NYSERDA said the two tracks represent more than $3.7 billion in private investment and over 1,000 jobs. The agency has not yet named the specific developers or exact locations of the eight storage projects beyond their regional distribution; that level of detail is typically released as individual projects reach commercial operation and interconnection milestones.

Sources

• NYSERDA — Bulk Energy Storage Program, nyserda.ny.gov — ISCRFP25-1 solicitation background
• Energy-Storage.News, “NYSERDA picks eight projects for New York utility-scale energy storage programme”, September 23, 2026 — project count, duration range, geographic spread
• IndexBox, “New York Selects 950MW of Energy Storage in First Bulk Solicitation”, September 23-24, 2026 — bid count, oversubscription figures, community benefit total
• Governor Kathy Hochul’s office, “Governor Hochul Announces New Framework to Achieve Nation-Leading Six Gigawatts of Energy Storage by 2030”, 2022 — original storage target increase
• NYSERDA Newsroom, “Approval of New York’s Nation-Leading Six Gigawatt Energy Storage Roadmap Announced”, June 20, 2024 — PSC roadmap approval and cost-savings estimate

Illustrative image. Photo: Kecko from Eastern Switzerland, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source