Title: NYSolar Smart DG Hub – Resilient Solar Project
Funding Opportunity: Solar Market Pathways
SunShot Subprogram: Soft Costs
Location: New York, New York
Amount Awarded: $859,720
Awardee Cost Share: $314,669
The NYSolar Smart Distributed Generation (DG) Hub - Resilient Solar Project was created by the City University of New York (CUNY), in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Meister Consulting Group. Developed in response to the widespread power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, this project is creating a roadmap for the integration and tracking of resilient solar systems, which can be used to supply emergency power and energy storage throughout New York City. This project will also analyze deploying resilient PV systems on critical infrastructure facilities. For more information on this award and the Solar Market Pathway’s program, visit their website.
APPROACH
NYSolar Smart is expanding the NYS Solar Calculator to include a solar map that identifies areas in NYC suitable for resilient solar PV. In 2013, Sustainable CUNY formed the Smart DG Hub to strategize pathways to integrate distributed generation into emergency and resilience planning. The project will incorporate key barriers, solutions, and recommendations from stakeholder working groups into the Smart DG Roadmap for Resilient Solar. The project team aims to create guidelines for creating resilient PV codes, regulations, and technologies. The map will include 5-7 year implementation plans and short, medium, and long-term goals and guidance for meeting the goals using new and existing policies.
INNOVATION
The team seeks to develop a cost-reduction pathway and framework so that more states and localities can adopt this framework. Upon completion of the roadmap, the project team will distribute lessons learned and best practices to government agencies, solar industry stakeholders, and consumers and host trainings for installers and code officials on resilient solar PV.