Bright Power Wins RISE:NYC Competition with Innovative Resilient Power Hub
The RISE:NYC competition, from NYCEDC, awards innovative solutions that drive business resiliency and which will better protect New York City from the impacts of future storms, sea level rise and other effects of climate change. Bright Power’s Resilient Power Hub is a small-scale, storm-proof power plant, that will be deployed at three New York City locations using the prize money.
Stemming from the impact of Hurricane Sandy, RISE:NYC is a $30M competition administered by the NYCEDC to aid in the recovery and disaster prevention efforts of NYC’s small businesses. “Rise:NYC is part of the City’s comprehensive suite of initiatives to mitigate the effects of severe weather and climate change on New Yorkers, and all of the winning technologies will help support and strengthen small businesses across the city,” said NYCEDC President Kyle Kimball. “Each of the 11 innovative winning technologies will make the City a safer, stronger and more resilient place, creating economic support and additional opportunities for New Yorkers and small businesses.”
The competition not only inspires innovation that targets the significant vulnerabilities in New York City’s buildings and infrastructure networks that the storm revealed, it also ensures that the highest impact, most scalable and replicable projects are implemented. Over 200 applications from 20 countries were submitted, finalists were announced in September 2014 and displayed their technologies at a demo night in October 2014. The 11 winners were selected by a panel of esteemed advisors and announced at an awards ceremony on April 29, 2015.
“Competitions like RISE:NYC bring out the best in our creative, technical minds and allow us to dream up powerful solutions to widespread problems. With so many impressive ideas from the finalists, it’s an honor to be selected as an award recipient. We are thrilled that the competition has recognized our Resilient Power Hub as a potentially transformative technology for our city,” said Jeff Perlman, President of Bright Power.
Bright Power’s Resilient Power Hub is a small-scale power plant that provides buildings with instantaneous back-up power to critical systems when the grid goes down, as well as energy savings the rest of the time. It can operate as part of or independent from the utility grid. The technology combines solar photovoltaics (PV), combined-heat-and-power (CHP) and energy storage under one automated system that is easily scaled and replicated in various building types. Partners include Thread Collective, a sustainable architecture firm, as well as Growing Energy Labs, Inc. (Geli), a provider of the Geli EOS software solution for energy storage and microgrid systems.
“Geli is excited to work with Bright Power and Thread Collective to bring their Resilient Power Hub microgrids and microgrid networks solutions to local businesses”, added Ryan Wartena, Geli CEO. “Designing microgrid systems based on building-specific requirements will be the way to scale energy solutions that provide maximum benefit to both the project host and the grid through Geli’s Internet of Energy platform.”