A shortcut through the bottleneck: Dropshipping grid flexibility

Urban grids are running out of room , especially in dense cities where rooftop solar is limited, EV charging is complicated, and peak demand keeps climbing. Modernizing and growing utilities thus need new, novel ways to unlock flexibility without massive infrastructure overhauls. In this episode, Andrew Wang of Every Electric shares with host Kinsey Grant Baker his team’s unique approach to “dropshipping” grid flexibility directly into multi-family residential buildings, deploying free home batteries that allow residents to earn money while providing short bursts of load relief during peak periods.

From space constraints to split incentives between landlords and renters, Andrew highlights the challenges that urban power companies face. And while distributed energy resources have long been viewed as an answer to the city landscape, he explains that ultimately many DER strategies miss the renters and multi-family buildings that make up the backbone of major cities. Instead of expensive building-wide retrofits, he’s targeting individual apartments to prioritize speed, scalability, and customer participation.

The result? New York City’s largest residential battery fleet, deployed ahead of summer heat waves in partnership with Con Edison. Listen in to hear why grid flexibility must become a core planning resource rather than a pilot program, where this model could scale nationally, and what utility leaders should prioritize if they want flexibility to be a reliable, bankable part of the grid of the future.

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