Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, announced the funding to advance progress towards the state’s ambitious target of deploying of 1,500-megawatts of energy storage by 2025 and also support the Clean Energy Standard, which requires half of the state’s electricity to come from renewable energy by 2030. The NY-Sun program, a $1 billion initiative that strives to build a self-sustaining solar market, will make the funding available in November to speed up the deployment of at least 50 megawatts of solar-plus-storage. The technology will help lower consumer energy bills and enhance the value of renewable energy to the grid. Solar-paired-storage can also lower costs by utilizing federal tax incentives, combining permitting processes, and co-locating on the same site to save space. The storage component will facilitate shifting of renewable generation to times of highest usage in commercial and industrial applications and community solar projects. The funding marks the first storage incentive made available since the release of the state’s energy storage roadmap in June.