Microgrid Networks Opens Doors to Energy Storage

On a tour of the facility during Microgrid Networks open house on June 6. Pictured are Diana Reyna (government and community relations consultant for Microgrid Networks), Rebecca Bar (vice president of engineering), and Leah Archibald (executive director of Evergreen) *Photo credit: Lori Ann Doyon*

In early June, Microgrid Networks held an open house to their energy storage facility at 1074 Grand Street. They broke ground less than a year ago.

The gates to the facility entrance will be remaining open 24-7 to allow the community to access the two Superchargers, which can add 200 miles of range to a car in only fifteen minutes.

The facility is set up to provide energy storage for ConEdison and can return the stored energy within a thirtieth of a second when it is needed. In layman’s terms, the energy stored in this facility could power around 750 homes for a day.

Tim Dumbleton, COO of Microgrid Networks *Photo credit: Lori Ann Doyon*

“The electrical grid is old, you can either double the size of it, which means digging up all the streets and putting in twice as many wires costing billions of dollars, or you can take the existing grid and make it more efficient. There is a bunch of the grid that’s not being used now, the grid is pretty much empty at night and these things just use the capacity that exists at night. … its cheaper for you as a rate payer to build a bunch of this than to double the wires.” Tim Dumbleton, COO of Microgrid Networks.

As of this writing they are awaiting ConEdison to energize.