WATTMORE and Urban Electric Power selected to join Newlab’s Resilient Energy Studio, will team up to bring energy storage solutions to NYC

Brooklyn, New York, Nov. 1, 2022 — WATTMORE, a climate tech start-up building an adaptive Energy Management Software platform for managing and operating the coming wave of scalable energy storage projects, has been chosen along with battery innovator Urban Electric Power to participate in the Resilient Energy Studio, a partnership between the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Newlab.

The participants will develop local energy storage pilot projects in New York, working with entrepreneurs, community organizations, energy experts, and other leading industry players. The Resilient Energy Studio is a partnership between the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Newlab, and in collaboration with Con Edison.

“The Resilient Energy Studio envisions a future state in which a robust energy storage ecosystem is helping to foster a sustainable, resilient, and more equitable New York City,” said the project sponsors. “Through entrepreneur-led pilot projects, the Studio aims to catalyze this transition by building momentum around these future state opportunities to set the City on a path toward a just transition to a sustainable energy future.”

With acceptance in this cohort, WATTMORE expects to grow its presence and service offerings for clients within New York’s growing energy market, with its vast potential for renewable energy storage projects.

“To quote Frank Sinatra, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere,” joked WATTMORE CEO JW Postal. “This award is a massive opportunity for WATTMORE to show major partners Lendlease, Con Edison, and NYCEDC the power of intelligent, flexible EMS software to drive the deployment of energy storage across construction and urban-built environments. We are excited to partner with Urban Electric Power to bring a safe, scalable and optimized solution to Lendlease and the New York market.”

Urban Electric Power was founded by a team at the City College of New York to commercialize their invention of a rechargeable alkaline battery. Based on the same non-flammable chemistry as a household AA, its battery avoids the use of lithium, with its risk of fueling hot-burning, hard-to-extinguish fires. It has been certified to UL standards as fire-safe and is now making its first installations in dense urban environments. This year the San Diego Supercomputing Center installed a 2-megawatt-hour backup system using this battery.

“Our batteries are a good fit for this project because they can meet the Fire Department of New York’s permitting requirements for fire-safe indoor energy storage,” said Ann Marie Augustus, Vice President of Operations and Co-Founder of Urban Electric Power. “We make them nearby in Pearl River, New York. And we source our materials from alkaline batteries’ existing global supply chain, which is already well-developed and affordable.”

Acceptance into the studio and the partnership with Urban Electric Power gives WATTMORE access to key energy players that need easily-scalable technologies to help keep electricity reliable in New York and to make it more resilient when the electric grid faces challenges.