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Up to 80% in funding available under new program

Storing energy can help businesses in a variety of ways. It can help manage site peak demand charges, provide reliability and resiliency during power outages, and it can reduce the need for fossil fuel backup generation.

But the cost of adding batteries large enough to do the job dissuades many businesses from moving to energy storage. That's why we're now offering an up to 80% incentive for the purchase and installation of new batteries for commercial customers, small industrial and agricultural customers who have a working smart meter. Previously installed battery storage is not eligible.

"We really want to incentivize our customers to add energy storage," says BC Hydro senior product manager Paul Seo. "In the beginning, this will be a learning process both for us and for our customers."

In exchange for the incentive, customers under the energy storage incentive offer will allow BC Hydro to dispatch the energy storage system automatically for periods of up to four hours in response to changing conditions on the grid. These dispatch signals trigger the battery to discharge, powering the customer's facility and reducing demand on the grid.

The battery will then recharge later in the day or night, and the program will always reserve battery storage for backup power for the likes of power outages. It's up to the customer to determine how much energy they want to keep in reserve, and how much they can provide to BC Hydro. Demand events will be a maximum of four hours per event, a maximum of twice a day, with a minimum of five hours between events.

For details on how the incentive is calculated, and for several examples based on varying battery sizes and capital costs, go to the energy storage incentive program page.

How Alliance members can get involved

One of the keys to the program's success will be customer access to experienced installers of batteries for energy storage.

"We’re looking to the Alliance for installers who are certified to install these batteries," says Seo. "They need to be informed enough about the program and to be up to date with energy storage solutions and systems, especially with large batteries."

Other benefits of the incentive program

The big draw with the program is the incentives against costly battery purchase and installation. And while the plus for BC Hydro is the ability to reduce demand on the grid at key times, the program is designed to ensure the demand response dispatches are done through an automatic "set and forget" process.

Customers are guaranteed a minimum battery reserve so that their site always has some storage available during power outages and to help them manage site demand charges.