The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority announced an evaluation plan on June 27 to develop an estimate of the major cost components of energy storage to inform its program strategy. The plan includes outreach activity to collect and update data about distributed storage installation with an emphasis on soft costs, as well as a broad review to assess hardware costs, hardware balance-of-system costs, and performance. The study is intended to achieve select goals to improve energy storage economics and performance for key applications including making intermittent renewables “always deployable” and providing ancillary services during peak demand hours. The agency also seeks to achieve meaningful reductions in soft costs of distributed storage with a goal of 33 percent by 2021 relative to a 2015-2016 baseline, identify “best fit customers” and use storage in utility planning. The agency will collaborate with Navigant Consulting Inc., which has completed evaluations for the agency for over a decade including the agency’s energy efficiency programs.