A state agency is once again trying to craft a robust incentive program to spur investment in systems to store energy, a technology viewed as crucial to achieving New Jersey’s goal of transitioning to clean energy.

For the second time in a year, the Board of Public Utilities is soliciting input from industry executives, energy advocates and utility officials on a proposal to store power from renewable energy to keep the lights on for homes and businesses.

So far, the state has fallen well short of its own goals to develop energy storage in New Jersey, failing to achieve a target of storage systems that can hold 600 megawatts by 2021. That missed target is raising questions if the state’s larger objective of 2,000 megawatts by 2030 can be achieved.

Ensuring grid stability

With the Murphy administration intent on employing intermittent clean-energy sources, primarily solar arrays and offshore wind, for more than half of New Jersey’s power supplies, few question the necessity of developing significant energy-storage capacity. When those intermittent resources falter, the electric grid would remain stable by using power injected into it from energy-storage devices.

“The board is clearly behind their energy-storage goals,’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, who added increased investment is needed to scale up energy storage around the state.

In its latest outreach to stakeholders, the Board of Public Utilities’ staff kept the decision to exclude utilities from owning and operating storage devices.

Multiple states are already deploying large quantities of energy-storage capacity, and some are even finding the technology can lower costs to electricity customers, as well as cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

The agency’s staff first proposed its so-called energy storage incentive proposal last fall, holding three public stakeholder meetings and receiving more than 61 written comments.

For the most part, the proposal won broad support, although there were some areas of dispute, such as the size and scale of the program. Overall, there was wide agreement that the state should encourage and promote storage systems to promote non-carbon power sources to alleviate pollution in overburdened communities through carve-outs and enhanced incentives.

No utilities need apply

One of the most contentious issues revolves around whether the state’s utilities ought to be excluded from owning and operating energy-storage projects, a situation that would require their customers to fund the systems on their monthly bills.

The issue is controversial because utility ratepayers are paying a large share of the cost of transitioning to 100% clean energy through subsidized installation of solar systems, increased energy efficiency programs and eventually building offshore wind farms.

Some commentators argued the state needs to take advantage of all available resources to meet the 2,000-megawatt target by the end of the decade. Utilities can and should be leveraged to rapidly expand New Jersey’s energy-storage resources, particularly in areas where the private sector has not entered, according to some participants.

In its latest outreach to stakeholders, the agency’s staff kept the decision to exclude utilities from owning and operating storage devices, but acknowledges utilities will play a key role in enabling effective dispatch of those resources.

The proposal was intended to encourage private ownership and operation of energy-storage systems and development of a robust energy-storage sector, according to BPU staff.

Under the program proposed by the agency staff, incentives would be available to energy-storage devices that are either grid-supply or customer-level projects. A portion of distributed storage projects would be set aside to serve overburdened communities, which have not benefited as much from the emerging clean-energy transition.