This fall, Portland General Electric (PGE) is set to launch the Smart Battery Pilot that will provide incentives for 525 residential battery energy storage systems located “behind the meter” in customers’ homes. The individual customer owned-systems will be combined to create a virtual power plant that can be used to provide valuable grid services. The five-year pilot will allow PGE to study how to optimize the use of these batteries to benefit the grid, while ensuring that customers also receive the benefits they want from owning the battery.
Energy Trust will play an implementation partner role to support the PGE pilot and help connect customers and Solar trade ally contractors interested in participating in this program. As part of this pilot, Energy Trust will provide support for customer outreach, trade ally education, quality management, application review and upfront incentive processing.
Qualifying battery systems
Only customers who have installed qualifying battery storage systems and have an approved PGE interconnection application will be eligible to participate. Rooftop solar is not required.
Qualifying systems include:
- Generac PwrCell
- Sonnen eco, Sonnen ecoLinx
- Sunverge One, Sunverge Infinity
- Solaredge Storedge and Energy Hub inverters with LG Chem RESU10H
- Tesla Powerwall II
Incentive overview
All qualifying customers are eligible to receive a monthly credit on their electric bill through July 2025 in exchange for allowing PGE to manage discharging the battery to provide grid services:
- $20 per month credit: Customers who charge their batteries 100% from onsite solar, which is considered a requirement to qualify for the Federal Investment Tax Credit
- $40 per month credit: Customers who are able to charge their batteries from the grid
A limited number of customers working with Solar trade allies to install new systems will also be eligible for upfront incentives. Similar to the Energy Trust solar electric incentive, the trade ally is required to provide the customer with the benefit of the incentive upfront to decrease the customer’s out of pocket cost. The upfront incentive must be itemized and shown on the customer’s contract. The two upfront incentives are:
- Up to 200 customers located in the Smart Grid Test Beds are eligible to receive an upfront incentive of $1,000 to $3,000
- Up to 25 income-qualified customers participating in the Energy Trust Solar within Reach offer are eligible to receive a $5,000 upfront incentive toward the cost of installing a battery energy storage system
Customers who have already installed a qualifying battery system may also be eligible to sign up for the program and receive a monthly credit. PGE will reach out directly to eligible customers and invite them to participate in the program.
Learn more
Trade allies interested in learning more about this program can fill out this online form and we will notify you once we schedule a webinar with more information.
Customers may visit portlandgeneral.com/smartbattery for more information, or email smartbattery@portlandgeneral.com with any questions.