Battery storage plants and your property taxes

A battery plant is real property, so the assessor values it like any other building. What happens next is set by Section 487 of the Real Property Tax Law, which covers solar, wind and, since 2018, electric energy storage.

• What’s exempt: a storage system built after January 1, 2018 and before January 1, 2030 is exempt for 15 years “to the extent of any increase in assessed value due to the system.” The land keeps paying tax on what it was worth before, and some special-district charges can still apply to the plant.
• Opting out: each county, city, town and village (by local law) and each school district (by resolution) can refuse the exemption for storage built after its law takes effect. On Long Island, only three opt-out filings appear in NYSERDA’s list since 2018: the Island Park school district, the City of Long Beach and one listed for Lawrence. A filing can cover some or all types of system.
• Payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs): a plant that doesn’t pay regular taxes can still pay the towns, county and schools under a negotiated agreement, including one through an industrial development agency. The PILOT rules written into Section 487 refer only to solar and wind, so for storage the payments depend on what gets negotiated.

For a particular project, the town’s assessor and its industrial development agency can tell you whether the plant applied for the exemption, whether an agreement is in place and how much it pays each year.

Your bill is your share of what each district (school, town, county, fire and so on) needs to raise. New taxable property in a district spreads that amount over a bigger base, so everyone else’s share shrinks a little. Value that’s exempt doesn’t help.

Two things limit how much a single plant moves your bill:

• The tax cap. New construction raises the amount a district is allowed to levy under the state’s tax cap (the “tax base growth factor”). Part of a new plant’s taxes can pay for a bigger budget rather than lowering other bills.
• Where the money goes. PILOT payments go to the taxing jurisdictions named in the agreement, in the shares it sets. Ask whether your school district is one of them; it’s usually the largest part of a Long Island bill.

Assessments follow market value. A plant down the road lowers your assessment only if it lowers what your home would sell for, and then only if you show it in a grievance.

Evidence so far points the other way. A study posted to the University of Pennsylvania’s research repository looked at 178 utility-scale battery projects in California, Massachusetts and New York and found that homes near an operating project didn’t see significant price changes compared with homes farther away.

If you believe a plant has hurt your home’s value, the evidence that works is the same as for any grievance: recent sales of similar homes near the plant compared with similar homes farther away. Our guide to lowering your property taxes covers the deadlines in both counties.