New York Awards 950 MW of Battery Storage Across Eight Projects

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has selected eight battery storage projects totaling 950 megawatts, the first awards issued under its new “Bulk” storage program aimed at backing up the state’s growing renewable energy fleet with grid-scale batteries lasting four to eight hours. NYSERDA revealed the winning bids on September 23, alongside 13 large-scale renewable energy projects awarded through a parallel solicitation.

Where the batteries are going

The eight storage projects are spread across Western New York, the Finger Lakes, the Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island. Named projects include Lighthouse Energy Storage in Chautauqua County, Zenobe Burns in Allegany County, Eastwater Energy Storage in the Finger Lakes region, KCE NY 5 in the Hudson Valley, and Blue Spruce Storage and Palladium in New York City — a geographic spread that mirrors where the state’s grid operator has flagged the greatest need for flexible capacity as more wind and solar generation comes online.

A $3.7 billion package, on top of the storage

Combined with the 13 renewable energy projects awarded in the same round, the package adds up to roughly 1.7 gigawatts of new large-scale energy resources. NYSERDA estimates the combined projects will create more than 1,000 family-supporting jobs, generate over $3.7 billion in private investment, and deliver more than $127 million in economic benefits to disadvantaged communities across the state.

The first of three planned rounds

This is the first of three annual bulk storage solicitations NYSERDA plans to run through 2027, each seeking roughly a gigawatt of grid-connected storage capacity. The multi-year structure is designed to give developers, equipment suppliers and the state’s grid planners a predictable pipeline to work against, rather than a single one-off procurement.

Part of a broader US storage build-out

New York’s awards land amid a broader acceleration in US battery deployment: developers across the country installed roughly 9.7 gigawatt-hours of new battery storage capacity in the first quarter of 2026 alone, according to industry data, up about 32% from a year earlier. Utility-scale storage projects elsewhere have followed a similar pattern this year, including Greenvolt’s 2.4 GWh battery project under construction in Poland and Australia’s grid operator connecting a record 9.1 GW of renewables and storage in the last fiscal year — evidence that grid-scale batteries are becoming a standard companion to new renewable capacity well beyond New York.

Sources

• Energy-Storage.News, “NYSERDA picks eight projects for New York utility-scale energy storage programme” — project list, capacity and regional breakdown.
• LongIsland.com / EIN Presswire, “NYSERDA Announces Awards For Eight New Bulk Energy Storage Projects And 13 Large-Scale Renewable Energy Projects” — investment, jobs and community-benefit figures.
• SolarPowerWorldOnline.com, “NYSERDA approves 1.7 GW of new state renewable energy projects” — combined capacity figure.
• mgrid.org, “NYSERDA Contracts 950 MW of Storage From 46 Bids in New York’s First Bulk Solicitation” — program structure and bid count.

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