It was in Manhattan, way back in 1882, that Thomas Edison flipped the switch on the world’s first electrical grid, sending 110 Volts of direct current (DC) to 59 downtown customers. It’s fitting, then, that 126 years later it was again Manhattan where an idea was hatched that could prove yet another global model for the production and distribution of electricity, in this case for urban areas as they necessarily shift towards clean energy sources.  The concept is the solar empowerment zone, and it addresses directly the challenges of integrating the distributed generation of clean, renewable energy into a grid that was built to deliver electricity from a select few centralized power plants.

Last week at Hunter College, the New York City Council’s Infrastructure Task Force convened a public forum on distributed generation and how New Yorkers can add their own power to the grid.  It was, according to Chris Neidl of Solar One, a local non-profit clean energy advocacy and education organization, “arguably the most substantive public forum ever held on the complex subject of distributed energy sources and the New York City electricity grid.”  [Full disclosure: Chris Neidl is a friend and former colleague, as I used to work for Solar One.]  New York City’s grid has, since Edison’s time, remained a marvel of engineering, stretching and spreading power through the world’s most complicated and intricate “mesh grid” system of transmission lines, transformers, and network protectors.  Such complexity creates big challenges for the integration of photovoltaic (PV) solar arrays, small-scale wind and other distributed clean energy sources.

Photovoltaic solar emerged over the course of the 4-hour forum as the most logical and promising clean energy solution for New York City.  Because the five boroughs are in a load pocket, much of our power must be produced locally, and anyone who’s spent a summer here knows that there’s an enormous burden on the grid during the peak demand periods of sweltering summer afternoons.  Solar panels, of course, produce the most energy at precisely those times when New Yorkers are cranking their ACs.  And throughout the city, particularly in the outer boroughs, there’s no shortage of rooftops that are prime to harbor PV arrays.  During the forum, through a series of three panels, energy experts, business leaders, academics and city officials discussed the potential of solar and identified the key hurdles to spreading PV across the city’s rooftops.

Recent legislation out of Albany has made the personal economic hurdle a much smaller factor.  With expanded net metering, property owners can sell more power (now up to five megawatts) back to the utility, and the solar property tax abatement will, according to Con Ed’s calculations, help reduce the cost of a five kilowatt system from around $40,000 to $9,000.  But getting connected to the grid is another factor.

Under the current system, a building owner must pay for the costs of hooking a power source to the grid.  It’s a long, unpredictable, and often expensive process. The variables are enough to scare most developers away.  (If they’re not already put off by the hefty and intimidatingly titled document that outlines the process: “Standardized Interconnection Requirements and Application Process for New Distributed Generators 2 MW or Less Connected in Parallel with Utility Distribution Systems.” [PDF])

Enter “solar empowerment zones,” a term coined by City Councilmember and Infrastructure Task Force co-chair Daniel Garodnick.  The innovative concept calls for the identification of areas in the city that are well suited for widespread PV installation, which Garodnick defined as “low-density areas that have buildings with large rooftops to create a synergy for an entire neighborhood to become solar-powered.” Within these zones properties would be eligible for increased incentives for solar investment, potentially dropping upfront costs below even the newly reduced costs. Con Ed, hopefully serving as partner, would commit to fast-tracking grid feasibility analyses and tests within the established zones.  And, importantly, resources could be pooled to pay for any necessary improvements, and arrays could be tied together to necessitate only one connection to the grid, further streamlining the process.  These solar empowerment zones would serve to, said Neidl, “scale up solar capacity in the city at an exponential, rather than incremental rate.”  Speaking to some broader implications, Neidl emphasized, “Realization of the concept would establish, irrefutably, the Big Apple’s leadership position on the national stage in renewable energy adoption and innovative policy making.”

Solar empowerment zones could, in a relatively short timeframe, propel New York City to the forefront of urban clean energy implementation.  If the day comes when PV arrays atop the roofs in the city’s first solar empowerment zone start pouring juice into the grid, it may be celebrated as the most important flip of the switch since Edison himself first lit up Pearl Street.