PUC In Retail Choice State Approves Pilot For Utility To Provide Storage Devices To Customers
January 18,2019
The New Hampshire PUC has approved a settlement that will create a pilot program at Liberty Utilities (Granite State Electric) under which Liberty ultimately may purchase up to 500 Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries, which are to be owned by Liberty and installed on its customers’ premises.
Liberty plans to use the Tesla GridLogic software platform, or an equivalent software program, configured to allow the customer and/or Liberty to control the battery and its output according to the program requirements. Liberty is to also purchase and install cellular-based metering systems capable of recording three different TOU registers at each customer’s premises where a battery is installed under the program
Participating customers are to receive batteries in exchange for either an upfront
contribution for each battery of $2,433 or a charge of $25 per month for each battery on the
customer’s monthly electric bill for ten years, with an option to extend to 15 years with no additional payments due during the extension years. Participating customers are to have
access to the output of the batteries as a source of stored electricity and backup power, except
when Liberty is charging the batteries the night before, or discharging the batteries during,
forecasted peak demand conditions.
Customers participating in either phase of the pilot program, with the exception of those
on competitive supply, will be required to take retail energy, transmission, and distribution
service from Liberty according to a TOU rate design with seasonal differentiation. The TOU rates will have three separate periods on non-holiday weekdays (critical peak, mid-peak, and off-peak), and two separate periods on weekends and holidays (mid-peak and offpeak). The TOU rates are designed to be revenue-neutral and are based on
Liberty’s applicable default energy service rates in effect during the relevant period
Any participating customer may take competitive energy supply in lieu of
default energy service according to the terms agreed upon between the customer and its supplier,
but would take transmission and distribution service from Liberty at the applicable TOU rates.
The adopted settlement establishes a phased program. During Phase 1, Liberty is to deploy no fewer than 100 and no more than 200 batteries, to be installed and available for Liberty to dispatch by specified deadlines. Additional installations will require PUC approval under Phase 2
The settlement agreement also provides for the development of a potential “bring your
own device” (BYOD) program component that would include up to 500 additional batteries (or
the number of batteries with the equivalent capacity of 2,500 kW) not owned by Liberty and
deployed by one or more third-party aggregators. The potential BYOD component would be
developed pursuant to a multi-step working group process conducted over a specified time
period, and then submitted for Commission review and approval.
Implementation of a BYOD component of the pilot program is be conditioned on Liberty
seeking approval of Phase 2 only if the proposed BYOD third party aggregator intends to utilize
Liberty’s peak event forecasting.