Microgrid Sector Firms Working Together on 150-MWh Battery Storage Project in NYC

May 9, 2024
Eaton is working with fellow microgrid and on-site power developer Endurant Energy to deploy 10 battery storage projects that are planned to help strengthen grid reliability in the Bronx and Staten Island. The energy storage project, valued at more than $7 million, is designed to provide load relief for buildings and the grid during peak demand hours.

Global power management firm Eaton is designing and providing supporting equipment for a 150-MWh+ battery storage project at the north and south ends of New York City.

Eaton is working with fellow microgrid and on-site power developer Endurant Energy to deploy 10 battery storage projects that are planned to help strengthen grid reliability in the Bronx and Staten Island. The energy storage project, valued at more than $7 million, is designed to provide load relief for buildings and the grid during peak demand hours.

The investment also could help defer or eliminated the need for even more expensive upgrades to existing electrical substations.

What is the value proposition for microgrids? Read more

“These important investments in distributed energy storage will optimize New York’s electrical grid while supporting reliable power for industrial and commercial energy consumers,” Jason Plane, utility segment manager at Eaton, said in a statement. The battery storage installations and collaboration with Endurant Energy “will help successfully reinvent the way New York City distributes electric energy to support a more sustainable and resilient future.”

Eaton will deliver power system studies and equipment including switchgear, switchboards and transformers. These units will enable safe interconnection with the New York electric grid.

Endurant Energy has worked on several battery storage and microgrid projects inside New York City and elsewhere in the world. One of those was a combined heat and power microgrid providing power to the North Shore Towers in New York, while other microgrid projects were developed in Chicago, Hartford, Connecticut and Oxford, United Kingdom.

Last year, Eaton announced it will invest more than $500 million in its North American manufacturing and operations facilities. In addition to the equipment related to the New York project, the company's plants in North America produce circuit breakers, metering, EV charging technologies, voltage regulators and other electrical solutions.

Eaton also is accelerating its activities with microgrid development. It worked with Enel North America to install a solar-storage-generator microgrid to power manufacturing operations at Eaton’s Arecibo facility in Puerto Rico.

An additional $3 billion investment in research and development for next-gen distributed energy resource (DER) technologies led to construction and opening of its 35,000-square-foot Eaton Innovation Center in Quebec. The facility in Brossard, near Montreal, is focusing on optimizing DERs by connecting cybersecurity, software, human-centered design and automation expertise.

Eaton was an exhibitor at the recent Microgrid Knowledge Conference April 22-24 in Baltimore. Microgrid Knowledge 2025 will be April 15-17 at the Sheraton in Dallas.

About the Author

Rod Walton, Managing Editor | Managing Editor

For Microgrid Knowledge editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

I’ve spent the last 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. I was an energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World before moving to business-to-business media at PennWell Publishing, which later became Clarion Events, where I covered the electric power industry. I joined Endeavor Business Media in November 2021 to help launch EnergyTech, one of the company’s newest media brands. I joined Microgrid Knowledge in July 2023. 

I earned my Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. My career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World, all in Oklahoma . I have been married to Laura for the past 33-plus years and we have four children and one adorable granddaughter. We want the energy transition to make their lives better in the future. 

Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech are focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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