The G.L.E.N (Green Light Energy Network)

Los Sures, and other neighborhoods with similarly strong roots in manufacturing and industry have historically been sacrificed to create assets for the city, without reaping the financial benefits of their labor or compensation for the use of their neighborhoods. The creation of the GLEN would help put power back into the hands of Los Sures residents while generating wealth, job opportunities, and creating leverage with the city and state. 

Efforts like this are already underway in Williamsburg. Take for example The Bathhouse spa, which utilizes excess energy from Bitcoin mining to heat their luxury pools (Bardolf, 2023). Although this innovation is green, ultimately the money is simply generating more wealth for a business which perpetuates gentrification in the area. However, larger campaigns, like Climate Works for all (which El Puente is a critical player in), are creating blueprints that help ensure a just transition (NY Climate Works, n.d.). 

This recommendation urges El Puente to act quickly and ensure these green energy opportunities enrich the community and ensure Los Sures experiences a just transition to a cleaner energy matrix before it's too late. It is critical to act swiftly before manufacturing land is acquired by outside forces and while there is still a community constituency that can benefit from these actions living in the area.

The existing conditions research, including conversations with El Puente and other critical stakeholders, exposed three main conditions that molded the recommendation to advocate for an autonomous mini-grid. The first was the Woodhull Hospital power outage which occurred during Tropical Storm Ophelia, resulting in the evacuation of patients from one of the only three public hospitals in Brooklyn (Gonella, C 2023). The second insight was the strong history of industry and manufacturing in Los Sures. Although existing conditions research revealed that these jobs saw the largest decrease in both occupations of residents and jobs in the study area, this recommendation, as well as recommendation 2.8 suggest transitioning these into green jobs. The third existing condition that inspired this idea was El Puente’s mission to ensure residents in Los Sures maintain and gain more autonomy.

Proposal:

• Create the necessary scalable energy initiatives the city needs through thermal, tidal, solar, wind, and geothermal energy 

• Continue advocacy around CLCPA fund accountability 

• Transition decreasing manufacturing jobs to green jobs in the GLD

  
  

Tidal

Tidal energy is an extremely viable form of renewable energy for the GLD due to the nature of its geography. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy even identified the East River as an ideal site for tidal power generation” (Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy 2021). El Puente has an opportunity to leverage its relationship with Two Trees Development to apply pressure for the creation of tidal energy sources. El Puente can also advocate turning the newly decommissioned peaker plant into a tidal energy generation site with energy storage, as well as a workforce development hub (see Rec 2.8) citing the precedent set by the approval of the River Ring development in regards to the viability of the project. 

Proposed tidal energy generation sites include both the Domino Park waterfront and the newly decommissioned peaker plant.

Solar

Solar energy generation provides many benefits to the area. The addition of solar energy panels can help alleviate some of the extreme heat areas found in the existing conditions report. In addition to energy generation and extreme heat mitigation, solar energy also aids the city in its decarbonization goals, giving more leverage to Los Sures and the GLD. “Nearly all of the space available to build solar farms is outside the city and upstate, which creates a need for transmission and distribution power lines, but without an additional cost to ratepayers. According to the New York Comptroller, the boroughs have installed about a third of its goal of running at least 1 gigawatt of solar power by 2030” (Misdary, 2022).

Proposed sites for solar energy generation include the 66 proposed solar bus stop shelters (see Rec 3.4), El Puente
HQ, the bus depot (see Rec 2.2), and the passive house sites from recommendation 2.3.

Outcomes:

• Energy autonomy through:

  • Creation of renewable energy as well as energy sold back to the grid or neighboring areas

  • Energy storage and creation of microgrid to create reliability during increasing storm surges 

• Creation of green jobs

Scalable Renewable Energy Creation Energy Plan

Advocacy for local renewables and a localized energy grid is critical to ensuring the decommissioning of the peaker plant (spearheaded by the PEAK coalition), creating more community autonomy while advancing goals of becoming the greenest district in the U.S, and becoming an undeniable asset to further net zero goals and gain political leverage (Peak Coalition, n.d.).

New York City is predicted to see peak energy demand as early as the Summer of 2025 with a 446 MW deficit in energy driven by the ‘combination of forecasted increase in peak demand and the unavailability of certain generators’ (NYISO, 2023). One of those ‘certain generators’ could very well be the recently decommissioned peaker plant. An energy surge of this magnitude may serve as an excuse to keep the peaker plant in use. 

In addition, while the Climate Act mandates all power generation to come from clean sources by 2040, including 70% from renewable energy by 2030 (City of New York, n.d), New York City has produced only 10.9 MW of renewable energy last quarter (NYISO 2023). When compared to the 5,500 megawatts of power (NYISO 2022) used by New York City alone, it is obvious that we have a long way to go.

Dennis Ramdahin of the Vihara Foundation, in his project ‘Net Zero Zipcodes’ highlights the importance of creating scalable community-level energy. Although this effort focuses on sustainable retrofits (as seen in recommendation 2.8), it brings up the important point of scalable energy creation, in geographies approximately the size of the GLD. The GLD has ample opportunity for scalable sources of creation of tidal, wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

Wind

Wind energy has historically demanded a significant amount of space, but there have been recent developments allowing for smaller turbines the size of trees. In addition to their compact size, the turbines can provide energy directly to the building’s existing electrical system and can create 36,000 kWh of energy at a wind speed of 12 metres per second (Euronews 2023). 

Proposed wind energy generation sites include the 12 high-rise buildings (over 

13 stories tall) in the GLD, the Domino Park Waterfront, the Williamsburg Bridge, and could even be installed in building facades or parks.

Energy Storage 

In addition to energy generation, energy storage is also a crucial part of the equation, especially in Los Sures.

Energy storage plans are imperative at this moment due to the realities of New York City’s City of Yes Initiative, approved by city council in December 2023, which incentivises both the creation and storage of renewable energy, but lacks any protections against unchecked development in areas with the most potential, like Los Sures and could help make Los Sures be indispensable to the city as it targets 500 MW of energy storage to be installed citywide by 2025 (NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, n.d.)

While energy storage strengthens resilience and stability during peak electric use and storm outages caused by surges like Tropical Storm Ophelia which caused the Woodhull power outage, it also increases efficiency, and supports NYC goals of net neutrality by 2040. However, the city is agnostic to where and how these goals are met (NYSERDA n.d). The City of Yes initiative includes a potentially dangerous plan to allow and incentivize private entities to create energy storage opportunities, and areas with ample as-of-right manufacturing zones ideal for energy storage will be ripe for predatory development. El Puente has a unique opportunity at this moment to ensure that this does not happen in Los Sures.

This recommendation identified immediate threats as well as proposed mitigation actions…

As of Right Manufacturing Zoning

While the NYC Mayor’s office struggles to meet its goals it is increasing efforts to streamline permitting of energy storage (NYC Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice, n.d.), making areas with ample as-of-right zoning become precious commodities. 

Threat:

Developers and private entities interested only in generating capital will flood into areas like Los Sures buying as-of–right property in the properly zoned areas.

Manufacturing Opportunities that Do not Serve the Community

Threat:

Manufacturing threats can be hard to predict and innovations often move faster than policy can keep up with. El Puente is familiar with this as seen through efforts to fight against last-mile delivery hubs and warehouses in manufacturing zones in the area.

Jobs 

Threat:

Although energy storage is a critical part of moving towards a net zero city, it can create job vacuums, as energy storage does not require much human intervention once it is established. 

Geothermal

Similar to wind energy, recent technological advances have allowed geothermal energy to be viable at a smaller scale. Smaller power units, like those designed by Climeon, are compact and modular while still supplying up to 150 KW of power (New Tech Could Make Geothermal Energy as Common as Solar and Wind Power, 2019). In addition to smaller-scale geothermal units, New York City pumps 13 million gallons of water from the subway system daily (Mir,2018). Currently, this water is pumped into the sewer system, but advocates like Dennis Ramdahin have advocated that the city use this extracted water to heat and cool local homes, perhaps using smaller modular units (AIA, 2023).