If you own or manage a commercial building in Rhode Island, you already know that electricity costs are an ever-increasing, sometimes volatile, and always ongoing expense.
With new data centers and winter natural gas supply shortages driving utility rates higher every year, many businesses are looking for smarter ways to control their energy bills and improve resilience.
One of the most powerful tools now available is Rhode Island Energy’s ConnectedSolutions Battery Program—a demand response initiative designed to pay commercial customers for helping the grid when it needs it most.
Here’s a look at how this important program can help Rhode Island businesses save money:
Program highlights
- Rhode Island Energy’s Connected Solutions program pays direct cash incentives to energy storage system owners in exchange for the ability to control the battery’s discharge during up to 60 summer afternoon “events” each year.
- The utility discharges your battery during these events on days when power demand is at its highest. You are paid an incentive based on the average power output of your battery during all of the events in a year.
- Events are not called on days when large storms are expected, allowing your battery to retain all of its stored energy in case of a power outage.
- The best incentive for commercial businesses is the “Daily Dispatch” pathway, which pays $275 per average kilowatt (kW) of output. This incentive rate is locked in for 5 years.
- For example, if your business has a 100-kW battery that averaged 80 kW of output during annual events, you would earn an incentive payment of $22,000 for the year!
- Your energy storage system can pay back its cost within just a few years by stacking the ConnectedSolutions incentives with other programs like the federal solar tax credit and Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Fund grants.
If you’re ready for a consultation about how CommercialSolarGuy can save your business thousands of dollars this year with a commercial solar and energy storage installation, contact us here.
Details about how the Rhode Island Energy ConnectedSolutions program works
ConnectedSolutions is Rhode Island’s commercial battery incentive program. It rewards businesses that install energy storage systems (batteries) and agree to let Rhode Island Energy discharge those systems during times of high electricity demand.
In practice, this means your building’s battery is called on to deliver stored power back to the grid for a few hours on hot summer afternoons, when demand and prices spike. Your business gets paid direct cash incentives for the average amount of power you provide.
The program offers two main incentive pathways called “Targeted Dispatch” and “Daily Dispatch.”
- Targeted Dispatch focuses on the single annual peak hour and a few extreme peak days, with only two to eight events per summer, each lasting three hours. This option pays $35 per average kilowatt curtailed per dispatch session. It is a lower payout, but requires less frequent participation.
- Daily Dispatch, on the other hand, targets both the annual peak and the top 40 daily peaks, mostly in July and August. This can involve up to 60 events per summer, each lasting two to three hours, and pays $275 per average kilowatt curtailed per season. Daily Dispatch also includes a five-year locked incentive rate for new participants, making it the higher-payout option with more events and greater revenue certainty. After the initial 5 years, Rhode Island Energy will set rates for each season, if the program continues.
Adding to its already useful existence, your energy storage system earns meaningful “side” revenue each summer. Your participation also helps reduce strain during peak demand, lowering costs across the grid – including your own.
How to calculate potential Rhode Island ConnectedSolutions incentives
Connected Solutions incentives are based on your battery’s average discharge power (kW) across all events in a season.
A 100 kW battery averaging 80 kW performance would earn about $22,000 per year under Daily Dispatch or about $2,800 per year under Targeted Dispatch. A 500 kW battery averaging 400 kW performance would earn around $110,000 under Daily Dispatch compared to $14,000 under Targeted Dispatch.
With these annual incentive amounts, a commercial energy storage system can pay back its cost within 3 to 4 years. The ConnectedSolutions payments can be combined with other available incentives like federal clean energy tax credits, depreciation, and Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Fund grants (up to $75,000 for solar and $40,000 for storage).
The program has a $1 million annual cap per participant, but that ceiling is high enough that only very large portfolios would ever approach it.
A CommercialSolarGuy crew delivers a Tesla battery
How to participate in the Rhode Island Energy ConnectedSolutions program
Participation is quite easy, and CommercialSolarGuy can build your project from start to finish.
We’ll install a front-of-the-meter battery system, either on its own or paired with a commercial solar panel installation. Once the project installation is complete, we can help you enroll directly with Rhode Island Energy or a specialty company called a Curtailment Service Provider (CSP).
Events are called a day-ahead, typically in the late afternoon, and the process is automated through your CSP and your battery control software. This automation makes participation extremely simple. Just watch the incentive checks roll in!
Energy costs aren’t going down for Rhode Island building owners any time soon, but programs like ConnectedSolutions give you a way to turn a liability into an asset.
By investing in battery storage, your building can lower operating expenses, create a new revenue stream, and strengthen resilience against grid stress and outages—all while helping Rhode Island transition to a cleaner, more reliable energy future.
If you have any questions or would like to learn about battery storage for your business please reach out to craig@commercialsolarguy.com or call 508-499-9786.