Brooklyn Microgrid Overview

Brooklyn Microgrid is a network of Brooklyn residents and business owners who support local solar energy and who want to be pioneers in changing how we purchase and sell energy. The network connects people in Brooklyn who own solar arrays (“prosumers”) with people who want to purchase local solar (“consumers”).

 

Energy Marketplace

Participants access the local energy marketplace through the Brooklyn Microgrid mobile app. In the app, people can choose to buy local solar energy, upstate renewable energy, and/or grid energy. “Prosumers” sell their excess solar energy onto the marketplace for consumers to bid on. Local solar energy is “won” by consumers via an auction.

Prosumers can sell their excess energy on the marketplace once they have installed a Brooklyn Microgrid smart meter system, which gathers and records energy data for use within the energy markets.

 

Consumer Choice

Consumers use the mobile app to select their energy sources, set their daily budget for purchasing local energy, and set their bid price for purchasing local energy on the marketplace. Prosumers can choose if they want to sell their excess solar energy to the marketplace or continue to net meter with Con Edison.

 

Benefits

Purchasing local solar energy through Brooklyn Microgrid results in support for the local economy and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Additionally, it provides users with control over where their energy is sourced.

 

History

Brooklyn Microgrid’s first community activity took place in April 2016. A sandbox experiment enabled two residents on President Street in Park Slope to participate in the first ever peer-to-peer energy transactions.

 

In early 2019, a simulated marketplace will be launched. People will have the opportunity to experience energy choice and setting their price and energy source preferences, without any financial transactions occurring. The live energy marketplace will be launched in mid-2019.

 

Ownership

Brooklyn Microgrid is structured as a benefit corporation, which is defined as a for-profit corporate entity that aims to positively impact society, workers, the community and the environment. Revenue for the benefit corporation will be generated through a service fee which will be charged when the live marketplace is launched.