An energy storage developer has committed to replacing one of New York City’s aging fossil-fired peaker plants with a lithium-ion battery system. 

Elevate Renewables said it expects its Arthur Kill project to be the largest battery energy storage system (BESS) in the city when completed in mid-2025.  

This distinction speaks more to the historic challenges of siting storage in the city than to this project’s capacity — at 15 MW and 60 MWh, it is a fraction of the size of systems being built elsewhere in the state and nation. 

However, New York City has moved to sharply ease construction of energy storage, which will play a critical role in decarbonization of its grid, and Elevate Head of Development Eric Cherniss said he expects his team’s project will not hold the title for long. 

But he’s OK with that and says down the road Elevate may make plans of its own that also would dwarf this initial project. 

“New York has a very aggressive target. And I think we can play a very material role in that,” Cherniss said. 

The corporate umbrella that includes Elevate owns the Arthur Kill Power Station, which along with the peaker consists of two gas-fired steam turbines rated at 376 and 535 MW and dating to 1959 and 1969. 

One can think of potential scenarios involving an aging waterfront fossil plant with interconnection rights in a state trying to develop 9 GW of offshore wind on its way to a zero-emissions grid.  

Nothing is ready for public announcement at Arthur Kill, Cherniss said, “but we definitely see that there’s opportunities to reutilize existing infrastructure.” 

The City of No

Development of BESS has been slow in New York state, due in part to market and regulatory structures not optimized for storage. Development has been particularly challenging in New York City, which had earned the nickname “City of No” for its approach to renewable energy development. 

With its dense population, expensive real estate and public safety concerns, the city has practical limits on renewables beyond policy limits. 

But in December, the New York City Council approved a package of zoning changes titled “City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality” that seeks to ease siting of energy storage and renewable energy generation, along with other environmentally friendly steps. 

The Arthur Kill BESS proposal had been in the works for a few years and did not face some of the obstacles that stymied other projects.  

It is in Staten Island, the city’s least populated borough, and will sit on a legacy brownfield site already used for power generation in an industrial area apart from homes. 

This is Elevate’s niche: The 4 GW of projects it is developing in six states are all co-located with existing power infrastructure on brownfields, whether they are replacement, co-location or hybridization of new and existing assets, Cherniss said. 

This cuts down on environmental impact, can reduce local opposition and may come with a skilled workforce on site. 

“It’s just the right place to put these facilities and be able to provide the services that are wanted in places in which they’re needed,” he said. 

“So, we had a lot of things going for us when we initiated this development that helped speed things along and reduced the risk of execution.” 

The 20-MW gas-fired peaker the BESS will replace was destined for retirement anyway — it will not meet tougher state air emissions standards imposed on peakers effective May 1, 2025. 

The upcoming wave of peaker retirements was sufficiently worrisome to NYISO that in November, it directed four of the generators to remain available for up to two more years to meet reliability needs. 

The Arthur Kill BESS will be one more backstop, able to power more than 10,000 households during peak periods — not a large number in a city of 8.3 million people, but it makes a statement.  

“It demonstrates the capability of renewables and specifically energy storage to really just step into the void associated with retiring assets,” Cherniss said. 

All major regulatory hurdles are cleared: Elevate has signed its construction contracts, and the energy storage services agreement with Con Edison was submitted to the state Department of Public Service on May 24. 

Commercial operation is targeted for the summer of 2025. 

The City of Yes

In the wake of the City of Yes revisions, Staten Island has attracted attention of BESS developers, so much so that Borough President Vito Fossella has raised safety concerns about the number of proposals and their proximity to residential areas. 

Popular opposition has reared up as well, thanks in part to media coverage of BESS fires. But in the industrial zone along the Arthur Kill, the new BESS will be away from residences. 

Cherniss said Elevate has heard no local opposition to its 15-MW BESS. 

Similarly, a 650-MW BESS proposed by Hecate Grid a half-mile from the Arthur Kill Power Station has generated no written comments to the DPS even though it is closer to residential areas, nor did anyone comment during a DPS public statement hearing May 15. 

Other large-scale proposals have been floated in New York City, and Cherniss predicts the Arthur Kill BESS will not be the largest in the city for long. 

“It really depends on when people show up with their projects based on their stated time frames,” he said.  

“I believe it’s sometime in either ’26 or ’27. For New York City, I hope that it’s sooner or it stays on that time frame, because I’d love for there to be some more competition to continue to grow energy storage due to the importance that I see, placed in the overall transition.” 

(These records already are falling with some frequency: Less than a year ago, Con Edison claimed the title of biggest BESS in the city with a 7.5-MW/30-MWh facility in a different part of Staten Island.) 

Elevate “absolutely” intends to go larger than 15 MW on future New York City BESS development, Cherniss said, and he sees progress at the DPS and NYISO on building regulatory and market structures that can better support energy storage development. 

Storage is more than a way of meeting peak demand, he said; it adds stability and resilience to a grid increasingly relying on intermittent renewables. These added values are not presently compensated, he added, but he sees improvements in the works in New York state.  

“It’s going to take the market some time to figure out how to give those signals to the development community,” he said, “and that’s why you see a significant number of the states either putting procurement requirements or direct subsidies, because they know the value of energy storage, but they know that the market isn’t necessarily giving that clear of a signal.”