Utility In Retail Choice State Seeks Approval To Offer Residential Battery Storage Pilot To Customers

Granite State Electric (Liberty Utilities) has sought approval at the New Hampshire PUC for a residential battery (storage) pilot

Specifically, Granite State Electric (the "Company", "GSE", or "Liberty") is requesting that the Commission approve the following:

a. The Company’s purchase of up to 1,000 batteries and related equipment to be installed at participating customers’ homes;

b. A monthly charge on participating customers to defray some of the costs for the battery storage systems;

c. The inclusion of the Company’s investments in rate base in its next rate case filing;

d. A time-of-use rate for the distribution and transmission charges (transmission charges are not party of the supply bill in NH) for customers who participate in the battery storage pilot; and

e. Any other necessary approvals to implement the pilot.

In testimony supporting the petition, a witness for GSE stated, "In order to meet the changing needs of customers and continue to provide value, electric utilities will need to offer customers a suite of solutions to address their complex and varying energy needs. Electric utilities should move beyond simply selling customers more electricity. Instead electric utilities must understand and support their customers’ goals of reducing electricity use, managing costs, and obtaining electricity from an array of environmentally friendly sources."

"With the advent of companies like Amazon, where customers can order a product and receive it in 24 hours, or Netflix, where driving to the movie rental store is a thing of the past, customers expect the same immediate attention to their questions or concerns from their utility. Electric utilities that do not address these emerging customer needs will be left behind like the landline phone companies millions of dollars in costs associated with poles and wires with a declining number of customers taking service," GSE's witness said

More specifically, Liberty Utilities is proposing to own 5 megawatts (MW) of battery storage (nameplate), or about 1,000 batteries, which will be installed in residential customers’ homes. The batteries will provide backup power for the customer, reduce peak demand, and potentially provide voltage and other support services as needed. The customer will have access to the battery capacity nearly all the time, except when a peak demand is predicted for the following day. In those cases, the Company will control the batteries to ensure they are charged and ready to be dispatched during the peak period. Participating customers will be required to take service under a time-of-use (TOU) rate for distribution and transmission charges (transmission charges are not party of the default service or supply bill in NH)

Under the proposal, the customer will sign a contract with the Company to use the batteries for ten years, which will require them to pay either an upfront contribution towards the cost of the battery or a monthly fee for the ten years.

The customer will not be able to export the power stored in the batteries, but may generally use the capacity and energy to offset their internal load. However, if a peak is predicted for the following day, the customer will be notified the day before that a peak may occur and their access to the battery will be limited

The pilot will be open to both solar and non-solar customers

GSE said that the pilot is proposed with the goals of saving transmission costs and studying other potential system benefits.

The near-term goal of the program is to reduce regional and local (RNS and LNS) transmission charges. The long-term goal is to study the effects of the batteries on the distribution system and the effects on transmission costs

DE 17-189