Battery Energy Storage Systems for Brooklyn

About BESS

Neighborhood-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (or BESS) are valuable parts of our electric grid.  Safe and reliable, BESS installations improve our access to electricity by

  • Lowering our utility bills
  • Preventing brownouts and blackouts
  • Cleaning our air by substituting for dirty fossil fuel power plants
  • Supporting energy independence by supporting local energy sources like solar

 

đź”— Read more about how BESS installations work and their benefits

🔗 More information about requirements for BESS in New York State 

🎥 Watch our info session on BESS

Why Brooklyn?

High utility bills

All of us in New York City get our electricity from Con Edison whose rates have increased steadily since 2020. We pay one of the highest rates for electricity in the country.  Our rates are so high because most electricity in New York City is generated by power plants that burn natural gas. In winter, the price of natural gas that fuels these power plants is high because of competition from its use in heating locally and because of competition from Europe and Asia for US natural gas. In summer, electricity rates are high because air conditioning raises demand, which requires the use of extra electricity production from otherwise unused natural gas-burning “peaker plants” that charge particularly high prices for the electricity they generate. And our energy infrastructure is old.  BESS installations are a much cheaper alternative to expensive upgrades. 

Battery Energy Storage Systems charge their batteries in the middle of the night when electricity prices are low so they can deliver electricity back to the grid when it is needed at a very cheap rate. This enables electricity prices to maintain a steady price, instead of rising rapidly when there is a change in global energy markets.

đź”— The link between reliance on natural gas and utility bills

 

Vulnerability to brownouts and blackouts

A century ago when Brooklyn electrified, local electric grids were laid out by neighborhood with few interconnections between these local grids.  Now when demand for electricity is high, as on hot summer afternoons, some of these local grids have difficulty supplying enough electricity to local customers. 

Neighborhoods with Battery Energy Storage Systems have reserves of electricity that meet demand without brownouts.

🔗 Learn more about heat waves and brownouts in Brooklyn 

 

Too much reliance on fossil fuel-generated electricity, worsening air pollution

Almost all of the electricity produced in New York City comes from burning fossil fuels–primarily natural gas–in its 24 in-city power plants. Natural gas is not “clean,” it is merely invisible. 70% of NYC power plants are more than 50 years old so they are particularly inefficient. When natural gas is burned for electricity, power plants emit pollutants like nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and other gases that worsen human health. High asthma rates in NYC, for example, are attributable in part to these pollutants.   In NYC some of these plants are turned on only when demand for electricity peaks (so they are called “peaker plants.)  Their emissions are often particularly polluting and the cost of the electricity they generate is particularly high. 

Battery Energy Storage Systems, by contrast, have no emissions at all. 

🔗 On the health impacts 

🔗 On peaker plants in NYC 

But are they safe?

In New York every battery storage facility in New York must meet some of the country’s most stringent fire codes. These include fire-rated enclosures, automatic shutdown features, thermal and ventilation systems, and early-warning alarms  Battery energy storage systems are modular and compartmentalized, and are monitored in real time. This makes them far easier to isolate and manage. Firefighters with the NYFD have all the equipment they need and every BESS site has a direct phone line to a certified safety specialist.

With these fire codes in place, Battery Energy Storage Systems in NYC are both safe and reliable.

đź”— Read more about safety

🎥 New York’s 2025 Fire Safety Code set a national standard for energy storage safety.  Watch the discussion

 

 

BESS installations are good for Brooklyn.  They help our electrical power grid be more reliable, safer, and less expensive.

đź”— Read about the impact of BESS on one neighborhood in BrooklynÂ