(Hartford, Conn.-WTIC) The President of the Connecticut Food Association, Wayne Pesh, says batteries are the key to power resiliency for his 350 member grocery stores.
He illustartes his point with a storm that Connecticut endured about four weeks ago. "We had over 50 to 60 grocery stores that lost power. So the question becomes how do we keep them up and running and to maintain business."
Pesh says generators are not the answer. "They're loud, not friendly to the environment and we think that there's a big opportunity as technology changes to move some of this technology into battery power", he said.
Right now Pesh says it's cheaper to buy generators," than it is is to put solar and battery power in there. But we need incentives from the government to make sure those costs come into line."
He says requests have been made to PURA , "to have a program to target essential customer services, grocery stores, retail centers and housing authorities to put incentives in place through taxpayer subsidies to equal the cost of a battery versus generator power."
Pesh, who appeared on the WTIC morning show, says a commercial generator can cost 300-thousand dollars.