Batteries are becoming required infrastructure.
Commercial real estate owners are dealing with an energy environment that looks nothing like it did even five years ago: rising demand charges, more frequent peak events, grid stability issues, and utility rate structures that increasingly punish high-load buildings.
Yet the real shift happening right now isn’t just higher demand charges or rising energy costs. It's that tenants are feeling those pressures more acutely than ever, and it’s starting to shape leasing decisions. AI, electrification, cold storage, manufacturing, and data-heavy tenants all need more load capacity, more resilience, and more predictable energy costs.
An increasingly popular solution is installing a battery energy storage system (BESS) on-site. It isn’t about shaving a landlord’s utility bill, as most triple-net owners have low electricity costs; it’s about making a building more valuable and more leasable. BESS lets an owner offer cheaper on-site power, higher available load, and better reliability. For a growing set of tenants, that’s now part of the core RE value proposition. Buildings that can’t offer that are becoming less competitive.(See sidebar for the full fireside chat on the topic of commercial solar and storage 2026.)
Beyond tenant competitiveness, for property owners, BESS opens up new revenue streams (grid-services payments, demand response, frequency regulation, and in key markets, lease revenue) for storage systems with compelling economics.
Moreover, the time is now. BESS economics are increasingly compelling, as costs have continued to decline. According to a 2025 report, the costs of fully installed battery-storage projects globally fell approximately 93% between 2010 and 2024.
From an incentive standpoint, there’s a generous 30% federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for standalone storage, and several states are rolling out programs that can layer on another 20%-30% in incentives, pushing all-in support into the range of about 50%-60% for well-qualified projects.
Bottom line: BESS is becoming a financial, operational, and competitive advantage for CRE portfolios. It lowers operating costs, improves resiliency, unlocks new revenue streams, and hedges against long-term grid volatility.
SolarKal has spent the last several years helping CRE owners navigate the complexities of solar - from program design to procurement to execution - and we are proud to be the industry leaders in C&I solar. Storage brings even more fragmentation and variability, and owners need an independent advisor and representative they trust.
With that in mind, we’re excited to announce our launch of a full BESS platform built around how CRE owners actually make decisions. It offers the following services:
Advisory & Strategy
BESS Procurement
Project Management
This is the same approach that SolarKal has used to help CRE owners scale rooftop solar with best-in-class prices and execution - now extended to the full solar and storage stack.
There are successful use cases in many states, but the economics are most compelling in the following top locations:
California
Expensive peak pricing with high electrical rates.
New York City (City, not State!)
Attractive NYSERDA incentives specifically in NYC – systems will earn a tariff-based revenue that is guaranteed for 15Y
Illinois
Recently (fall 2025) announced incentive program slated for mid-2026 launch providing that could cover up to 50% of cost in addition to performance payments
New Jersey
Garden State Energy Storage Program (GSESP) launches in early 2026, expected to be one of the most attractive incentives, potentially 50% of battery equipment cost
Massachusetts
High demand charges and constrained ISO-NE grid with strong storage adders via SMART 3.0
We can help you understand:
SolarKal’s BESS Advisory Track Is Now Open!
If you want a portfolio review, a site-level assessment, or to join our early NJ working group, reach out - we’re helping CRE owners prepare now and get to the front of the line. Contact: Inquiries@SolarKal.com.
Solar and Storage 2026
Jigar Shah, and commercial energy storage expert, Tim Hade unpack the opportunities in 2026 for Commercial Real Estate owners.
Watch the Fireside Chat Recording
