REopt Demonstrates Economic Value of Solar Plus Storage in Bolstering NYC Grid Resilience

New York skyline with half the city in blackout due to a power failure during Hurricane Sandy. Photo by David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons

NREL conducted a REopt^® analysis to assist New York City (NYC) in evaluating the technical and economic viability of installing solar energy and battery storage at critical infrastructure sites. This analysis places a monetary value on resilience (equal to the cost of grid interruptions) and thus, in essence, models a new revenue stream for the avoided cost of a power outage.

NREL used the REopt modeling platform to optimally select and size resilient power options for the sites in the study, including revenue streams associated with displacing energy purchases from the grid, reducing peak demand charges, shifting grid-purchased energy from high to low time-of-use cost periods, and avoiding the cost of grid interruptions.

Analysis results showed that solar plus storage can be economically viable for NYC’s critical infrastructure and may be similarly beneficial to other commercial buildings across the city. This analysis is being used by managers of city buildings, private building owners and managers, the solar plus storage industry, and policymakers to better understand the economic and resilience benefits of solar plus storage.