Lower the house meter. Keep the elevator running.
Apartment buildings, co-ops and condominiums anywhere in the US on a demand-based common-area rate. KEEL sizes battery storage to the owner-paid common-area meter, arranges a 10-year lease with no upfront cost, and configures backup for the loads that make a building habitable.
The house meter has the worst peak in the building.
Elevators, booster pumps and central plant all start at once in the morning and again in the evening. The common-area meter sees a short, sharp peak and a low baseline the rest of the day, which is exactly the profile where a battery removes the most demand charge per dollar of equipment. In high-cost territories such as New York that peak is billed at roughly $50 per kW every month; in most of the country it is $10 to $25, which still pencils when the peak is sharp.
Buildings that already have rooftop solar on the house meter do better still: the battery captures midday export that would otherwise be credited at a low rate and uses it against the evening peak.
What the owner gets
- A lower, predictable house-meter bill. The demand charge becomes a fixed monthly payment priced below modeled savings.
- Backup for life-safety and habitability loads. One elevator, water pumps, emergency lighting, boiler controls and a lobby circuit for phone charging during an outage.
- No capital from the reserve fund. No purchase, no loan, no lien on the building. Co-op and condo boards can approve a lease without a special assessment.
- Demand-response income. Most utilities pay for committed summer load reduction; the same battery earns it.
- Someone else runs it. KEEL services the agreement and manages operations and maintenance for the term.
Who owns it
Owners with taxable income usually take a capital lease and keep the 30%+ federal credit plus depreciation. Co-ops, condos and owners without tax capacity usually take an operating lease, where the funding partner owns the system and the credit is priced into the rate. KEEL models both from the same bills and shows the rate difference before you choose.
What KEEL needs to price a building: 12 months of common-area bills, the utility account number for interval data, a list of loads you want backed up, and whether the building has solar. That is enough for an indicative rate in two business days.
Common questions
Which meter does the battery connect to?
The owner-paid common-area or house meter, which serves elevators, hallway lighting, pumps, central heating and cooling and laundry. That meter is usually on a demand rate, so it carries the savings. Tenant meters are not involved.
Does this help with building-performance laws like New York's Local Law 97?
Storage on its own does not reduce building emissions much, so it is not a compliance strategy by itself. It does lower operating cost and adds resilience, and it pairs well with heat-pump conversions that raise the common-area peak. KEEL prices both together when that is the plan.
Can the building keep running during an outage?
Yes, for the loads you choose. Most multifamily projects back up at least one elevator, domestic water pumps, emergency lighting and the boiler controls. Whole-building backup is rarely economic; critical-loads backup usually is.
Are there state incentives for multifamily storage?
In several states, and they change often. New York pays a per-kWh incentive with a larger block for affordable and disadvantaged-community buildings (see the New York guide); California and Massachusetts run their own programs. KEEL confirms eligibility against the program documents for every address before anything is priced in.
Start with the house meter bill.
Send one recent common-area bill and KEEL will tell you whether storage pencils for the building.