Communities interested in cleaner energy, as well as greater control over their electric supply and reliability, are increasingly turning to microgrids — miniature power systems that serve an individual facility or area with electricity, either on its own or in concert with a larger power grid. Typically, a microgrid consists of energy generation and energy storage that can power a building or community and can be disconnected from the energy grid.Continue Reading Microgrids: Placing Energy in the Hands of the Consumer
New York State 
In an order issued on February 11, 2021, the New York State Public Service Commission (“Commission”) established a “host community benefit program” through which owners of large-scale renewable energy facilities (25 MW+) would pay $500/MW (for solar) or $1,000/MW (for wind) each year for the first 10 years of project operation to be distributed equally among all residential utility customers residing in the municipality where the facility would be located. See Case 20-E-0249, In the Matter of a Renewable Energy Facility Host Community Benefit Program, 
On May 14, 2020, the New York State Public Service Commission (“Commission”) issued an order that will mark a turning point in the State’s electric grid modernization efforts (“Transmission Planning Order”). The Transmission Planning Order was issued in response to the recently enacted Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act (“Accelerate Act”), which was signed into law on April 3, 2020, as previously reported in 
Since the New York State Public Service Commission (“Commission”) first authorized the Community Distributed Generation (CDG) program in 2015, CDG Sponsors—the entities that organize, own and/or operate CDG projects—have faced an uphill battle in explaining the program, marketing it to customers and streamlining the energy billing process. The confusion arises first and foremost because CDG customers currently receive only bill credits, not renewable electricity or the environmental attributes of that electricity. This is further complicated by the fact that credits are typically denominated on the bill in kilowatt hours and are allocated in a cumbersome manner, whereby the utility first applies credits to a customer’s utility bill, but then the customer separately pays for a portion of those credits at a discounted rate (the “CDG Savings Rate”) to a third party – the CDG Sponsor – through a second bill. In addition to creating market confusion, this two-step process imposes unnecessary customer management and billing costs.
On April 1, 2019, the State Legislature approved a $175.5 billion budget for 2019-2020, which, among other things, eliminates an important sales tax exemption that allowed certain commercial customers of Energy Service Companies (“ESCOs”) to receive electric and gas supply without paying sales tax on transmission and distribution charges.
The New York Public Service Commission (“PSC”) appears to be creating a new Office of Investigations and Enforcement (“OIE”) and has posted a job listing for a Director of OIE (“Director”) who would report to the CEO of the Department of Public Service (“DPS”), as well as the Chairman of the PSC. The Director would be tasked with managing the OIE’s efforts in investigating and enforcing the regulations promulgated pursuant to §25 and §25-a of the Public Service Law. This mandate may include a vast field of public utilities and comes at a time when New York is in the midst of updating its complex Value of Distributed Energy Resources mechanism, which regulates electric utilities in their dealings with the ever-increasing number of privately owned distributed energy resources.