As the transformation builds momentum, it should open deeper digital opportunities across a wide field. This can begin with quick moves to improve efficiency and expand the customer base. This means that today’s utilities face a digital transformation of their organization and business. To thrive amid these challenges, the utility of the future will be a fully digital system. Entrants from the digital economy are disrupting the industrial landscape, while governments and regulatory bodies seek to encourage smarter measuring systems and greener standards for generation and consumption.

The competition for customers is shifting to the online channel the Internet of Things promises new product and management options. Data collection and exchange are growing exponentially, creating digital threats but also valuable opportunities. Renewables, distributed generation, and smart grids demand new capabilities and are triggering new business models and regulatory frameworks. While its unclear how often there will be excess profit to split, Con Edison spokesperson Allan Drury said it is the company's 'intention to maximize revenues from the battery to the greatest benefit of customers.The digital revolution is coming to the power industry. 'To provide an incentive for the companies to maximize the wholesale revenues of the storage asset,' as the order states, yearly revenue that surpasses contract costs will be split with customers, who will get 70% of the money, with shareholders getting the rest. The utility companies could charge customers the cost of the contracts necessary to build and maintain battery systems. In 2018, the PSC issued an energy storage order that set a goal of having 3,000 MW of energy storage functioning by 2030 and included details about how that goal would be funded. 'The requirement that the utilities contract with third parties through competitive RFPs ensures that storage will be located where it is needed most and at least cost to ratepayers.' 'The most important aspect of the state's direction to the IOUs is that investment in energy storage resources is best made by independent developers and not by the IOUs themselves,' said Gavin Donohue, president and CEO of Independent Power Producers of New York, a trade association for power producers in the state, via email. Some industry stakeholders also expressed support for the PSC's move directing utilities to contract out battery services, rather than run entire facilities themselves. The newly-approved tariff revisions for utility companies in New York addresses the deal between Con Edison and 174 Power Global, and similar deals between utility companies and their battery contractors. Once operational in 2023, the battery will be under a seven-year dispatch rights agreement with Con Edison. The former company signed a contract in December to build and operate a 100 MW battery storage project in Queens. In fact, that's the exact arrangement between 174 Power Global and Con Edison. Instead, other companies will carry out the construction and operations of different facilities.

The companies building batteries in New York and eventually running the day-to-day operations of the storage systems won't necessarily be Con Edison, National Grid, or any of the other utilities in the state.

Smart utility systems revenue