Long Island Community Microgrid Project (LICMP)

Project overview

The Long Island Community Microgrid Project (LICMP), located in East Hampton, New York, aims to achieve nearly 50% of its grid-area electric power requirements from local solar and sets the stage to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in transmission investments that otherwise would be required to deliver power to the region. The result will be an optimized local energy system combining up to 15 megawatts of solar power with a 25-megawatt-hour energy storage system. The renewables-based solution will also provide backup power to critical loads, including two Suffolk County Water Authority water pumping and filtration plants and the Springs Fire District facility, during outages.

The LICMP was one of the first projects awarded funding by New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo through the NY Prize Community Microgrid Competition. In 2016, the Clean Coalition completed a Feasibility Study for the project.

Project benefits

The Long Island Community Microgrid Project is expected to deliver many benefits to the community, such as:

• Reducing the dependence on both the transmission grid and local, oil-based generators
• Significantly increasing the penetration of local renewable energy
• Maintaining electric services for critical loads during grid outages
• Demonstrating the feasibility of using energy storage in utility grid operations to increase local renewable energy while decreasing fossil-fuel consumption and transmission costs

In addition, the LICMP will serve as a model for New York and beyond, proving that Community Microgrids provide cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable power.

Project update (as of 2019)

Highlights of the LICMP progress following the Clean Coalition’s delivery of the LICMP Feasibility Study:

• 20 MWh of energy storage has been deployed within the LICMP grid area (within the East Hampton Substation grid area).
• 100 MW of offshore wind is being staged for interconnection into the East Hampton Substation, which means that the LICMP will be served by far more local renewables than the 15 MW of solar originally anticipated.
• Several MW of solar have been deployed of the 15 MW anticipated.

This progress on the LICMP has been made through market forces and without further NY Prize grant support.

Long Island Community Microgrid configurations

Economic and environmental benefits

When fully developed, the Long Island Community Microgrid Project project will provide these benefits over 20 years: