California, USA Aims to Fix Low-Income Storage Program and Deliver New Resilience Incentives

California’s energy storage incentive program has been a great success, with more than 11,000 battery storage systems installed to-date. The problem is, it’s not reaching the state’s most vulnerable communities. California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) has a long history, dating back to 2001 when the program was established to encourage the development of customer-sited generation. Over the years, SGIP has evolved into primarily an energy storage incentive for residential and commercial customers. In recognition of the fact that these funds have not been flowing to the state’s disadvantaged communities, in 2017 the CPUC created the SGIP Equity Budget, a 25 percent carve-out of the program’s funds reserved for projects in disadvantaged and low-income communities. The CPUC had great intentions in establishing the Equity Budget – boosting economic and workforce development opportunities, reducing fossil-fuel power plant utilization, and increasing technology access among historically under-resourced and environmentally overburdened communities. Unfortunately, these good intentions were coupled with poor execution. Incentive levels were too low, outreach and education too minimal, and coordination with complimentary programs was non-existent. While Equity Budget funds have been available for well over a year, not a penny of the existing $72 million in available funds has been allocated toward an energy storage project in these communities. 

Source : https://bit.ly/2m1JQef