NineDot Energy Announces Company’s Largest Energy Storage Site in Hunts Point, The Bronx

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 25, 2026--

NineDot Energy ®, the leading developer of community battery energy storage systems (BESS) in the New York City metro area, joined elected officials, policymakers, and community organizations to celebrate the ribbon-cutting of NineDot’s battery storage site in Hunts Point, The Bronx yesterday afternoon. This clean energy storage system will bring significant benefits to a community which has long suffered environmental injustice and disinvestment. Fully operational in time for next summer’s heat waves, this system will deliver nearly 20 megawatts of power to the local Hunts Point community, enough energy to power nearly 20,000 homes during peak grid hours.

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“We’re honored to bring this battery storage site to the Hunts Point community,” said Adam Cohen, NineDot’s Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder. “Hunts Point has historically been overburdened by high-emitting fossil fuels, and this battery storage facility marks an inflection point in improving the local environment and grid reliability.”

Maria Torres, President and COO of The POINT CDC (Community Development Corporation) said “As the leading local organization dedicated to youth development and the cultural and economic revitalization of the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx, we are thrilled to celebrate this milestone with NineDot, supportive elected officials and agencies. We look forward to creating the mural that will adorn the project’s street side, and experiencing the benefits of the zero-emissions energy and improved grid reliability provided by this site in the coming years.”

Vanessa Gibson, Bronx Borough President, said “Today’s ribbon-cutting marks a meaningful investment in the future of Hunts Point. For too long, this community has been disproportionately affected by environmental injustice and disinvestment. By delivering nearly 20 megawatts of clean, reliable power, NineDot Energy is helping ensure that Hunts Point has the resilient infrastructure it needs and deserves. More than four years ago, I joined NineDot and the community to cut the ribbon at the company’s first site, and I am happy to be here once again as we celebrate the future of battery energy storage in our borough."

Assembly Member Amanda Septimo (District 84, The Bronx) said “Battery storage is foundational to delivering environmental justice: it’s key to retiring peaker plants, allowing for electrification of polluting sources like diesel refrigerators and trucks and ensuring reliable power on hot summer days. Along the way, batteries will help reduce future costs to ratepayers by avoiding expensive utility upgrades. All of these benefits are positive for the residents and businesses in Hunts Point.”

Council Member Justin Sanchez (District 17, The Bronx) explained “In addition to the direct environmental and grid benefits of this site, we’re excited by the workforce training NineDot is engaged in, such as the creation and execution of solar and storage engineering training curriculum at 5 CTE high schools (including at Co-Op Tech – Longwood Campus) in partnership with Solar One, and support for The HOPE Program in building employment pathways to the Green Economy. Partnerships like this help unlock additional value for the community, beyond the obvious energy-related improvements.”

David Sandbank, Senior Vice President,New York State Energy Research and Development Authority(NYSERDA), said “Battery energy storage is an important tool for modernizing New York’s electric grid and making it more resilient to extreme weather and high-stress conditions. This Hunts Point project demonstrates how the right policies, partners and programs can deliver benefits for communities throughout New York City and beyond.”

“Battery energy storage is essential to New York City’s transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy future, helping strengthen the electric grid and reduce reliance on fossil fuel peaker plants that have long disproportionately burdened communities like Hunts Point,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation(NYCEDC) President & CEO Anthony Shorris. “This project reflects the City’s commitment to building an equitable green economy, supporting our critical industrial hubs, and ensuring communities benefit from the investments needed to power that transition.”

Lauren Phillips, Senior Advisor for Clean Energy at the Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice(MOCEJ) said “Mayor Mamdani is focused on making the City cleaner and more affordable for all residents—especially for those struggling the most to get fresh air and reliable, affordable electricity. Community battery storage sites are essential elements to a clean, affordable electric grid. We’re so excited to see NineDot’s Hunts Point project come to fruition—it will bring real air quality and energy affordability benefits to Hunts Point residents. We look forward to seeing many other battery projects come online around New York City so that more New Yorkers can experience their advantages.”

Julie Tighe, President,New York League of Conservation Voters(NYLCV) said “Energy storage is indispensable to our clean energy future, and community-scale projects like the one in Hunts Point will help stabilize electricity costs for families while reducing toxic emissions from peaker plants in the surrounding area – communities long overburdened by air pollution and environmental neglect. NYLCV congratulates NineDot on the completion of this project and we applaud their ongoing commitment to providing a safe, reliable, affordable energy solution for New Yorkers.”

Daniel Chu, Senior Energy Planner,New York City Environmental Justice Alliance(NYC-EJA), stated “Environmental Justice communities like Hunts Point have been subjected to intense pollution for decades. Battery energy storage projects like this will reduce utility costs, improve energy reliability, and relieve pollution burdens. We need more of them directly serving our communities today. Thank you to NineDot for being a good local development partner, and NYC-EJA looks forward to helping get more and better energy storage projects done across New York.”

Residents of Hunts Point have suffered a decades-long history of environmental injustice. This has included the more than 10,000 diesel trucks that travel each day through the area, as well two high-emissions “peaker” power plants located in nearby Port Morris. In 2023, the combined Hunts Point - Mott Haven area recorded asthma-related ER visits at 2-3 times the citywide average, which can be attributed to fine particle air pollution. Energy storage will be integral not only in retiring these gas-fired plants – which operate only during peak grid hours, as battery storage does – but also in providing grid resiliency as Hunts Point moves toward an electrified produce and fish market, truck fleet, and more. This NineDot battery storage site replaces the former home of a fuel oil trucking company, exemplifying the transition to a modern energy grid.

During New York's extreme July 1-4, 2026, heat wave, NineDot Energy's fleet of community battery energy storage systems helped reduce stress on the electric power grid precisely when and where it was most needed. Across nine battery projects, NineDot exported nearly 34 megawatts during the peak hours, supporting Con Edison’s local distribution system and the statewide transmission system. That’s the equivalent of removing the power load from about 50,000 window air conditioners from the grid or powering approximately 34,000 households for four hours each day during times of peak demand.

NineDot Energy is on track to meet its goal of having 400MW of battery storage in operation, construction or development by the end of 2026. The company currently has eleven operating projects at six locations totalling 39 MW in Staten Island and The Bronx – the largest battery fleet operating in Con Edison's NYC service territory – with more than 60 additional projects in development, and a pipeline greater than 1 GW. Based on public interconnection queue data, NineDot's portfolio of mature community battery storage projects is second to none in ConEd’s New York territory.

Contact NineDot at nine.energy/connect.

About NineDot Energy

NineDot Energy is the leading community battery storage developer and operator in the New York City metropolitan region. We create innovative urban energy solutions that support a more resilient and affordable grid, reduce carbon emissions, and improve environmental equity. Overall our solutions make New York a cleaner, safer, healthier place to live, work and visit. NineDot is also expanding beyond stationary storage to incorporate mobile batteries and electric vehicle charging into some of our current and future sites. NineDot Energy’s name derives from the classic mathematical puzzle for sparking out-of-the-box solutions. We are based in Brooklyn, New York at NYU’s Urban Future Lab. Learn more at nine.energy.

Team members and guests at NineDot’s Hunts Point battery storage site, across the street from a NYC Sanitation Dept. facility (and truck) in background.

New York City and State elected officials, community leaders, senior energy agency staff, and NineDot Energy team members.

Left to right: David Sandbank, SVP, NY State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA); Giacomo Landi, Executive VP, NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC); Vanessa Gibson, Bronx Borough President; John Rhodes, Chief Program Officer, NYS Department of Public Service (DPS); Lauren Phillips, Senior Advisor, NYC Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice (MOCEJ); Adam Cohen, Co-founder & CTO, NineDot Energy; David Arfin, Co-founder & CEO, NineDot Energy; Amanda Septimo, NY State Assembly Member (The Bronx); Maria Reyes, NYC Climate Justice Hub Advocate

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV is taking his call to respect the dignity of every human life on the road with a weekend visit to France, where the Catholic Church has lost ground on influencing ethical issues as the country maintains a strict approach to secularism.

Leo is spending four intense days in Paris, the Catholic shrine at Lourdes and the northeastern city of Metz. He's hoping to draw attention to his appeals for peace at a time of war, and for greater reflection as artificial intelligence questions the very essence of what it means to be human.

Church bells across France are expected to toll at 10 a.m. Friday, when Leo’s charter flight lands at Paris’ Orly airport, and upward of a million people are expected to turn out to see him. The welcome has underscored the surprising level of interest in Leo’s visit, the first by a pope in 18 years.

Leo was to meet with President Emmanuel Macron at the airport upon arrival and then again at the Élysée Palace. During his busiest day of the trip, Leo was to then deliver a speech at UNESCO headquarters, celebrate vespers at the newly reopened Notre-Dame cathedral and then preside over a massive youth vigil at the Paris stadium Friday night.

For Macron, who is barred from seeking a third term in May elections, hosting the American pope is something of a capstone, after Pope Francis refused repeatedly to make a proper state visit to France during his 12-year pontificate.

“For a president of the republic as Macron, who is at the end of his mandate, it can be important to be aside the pope and to capture a part of his popularity. It’s not new,” said Charles Mercier, director of history and sociology of Catholicism studies at Paris EPHE university.

With seven months left in his term, Macron’s approval ratings are near record lows, driven by anger over the rising cost of living and criticism of France’s growing debt and deficit and deteriorating public services. Macron’s office said Friday’s meeting with Leo will provide an opportunity to discuss global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, along with European and international affairs. The talks also are expected to address end-of-life care and the protection of children.

Leo seems keen to emphasize Europe’s Christian roots and try to push the church’s message about the value and dignity of human life in a country where the right to abortion was enshrined in the Constitution in 2024 and where lawmakers recently gave final approval to a bill allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication.

The French Catholic hierarchy strongly opposed the measures, in keeping with Catholic teaching that human life must be protected and defended from conception until natural death. But the French hierarchy has lost much of its influence amid the secularizing trends at play across Western Europe as well as a credibility crisis stemming from France’s reckoning with its legacy of clergy sexual abuse.

France’s distinctive model of secularism, known as laïcité and enshrined in its Constitution, guarantees the freedom to believe or not to believe, as well as the freedom to practice a religion as long as it doesn't disturb public order. It also requires the state to remain neutral toward all religions.

Key rules have been defined by a historic 1905 law, primarily intended to distance the state from the then-powerful influence of the Catholic Church.

Leo, whose paternal ancestors were French, isn’t expected to scold the French over the abortion and end-of-life legislation. Rather, he's expected to summon them to a fundamental, higher-altitude consideration about what it means to be human today, said the Vatican’s editorial director Andrea Tornielli.

“The pope is not landing in the City of Light to condemn anyone, nor to barge into the French political debate, which is as polarized as that of every other European country,” Tornielli wrote in Vatican News. “He comes as a shepherd to meet a people, their history, and their culture.”

Olympic-level security measures were being put in place, including mounted police, bomb disposal experts, anti-drone measures and counter-terrorism measures, said Paris police prefecture spokesperson Hélène Denéchère.

In Paris alone, plans called for 14,000 police officers, gendarmes, and military personnel and 2,500 firefighters on Friday. On Saturday, when Leo celebrates Mass at the central Place de la Concorde, the numbers are only slightly lower.

“We are implementing a system similar to what was in place during the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which means a protective perimeter around which other security perimeters will be added,” Denéchère said.

Visual journalist Jeffrey Schaeffer contributed from Paris.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

A banner announces the upcoming visit of Pope Leo XIV in Metz eastern France, Tuesday, Sept 15, 2026 as part of his official visit to France from Sept. 26 to 28. (AP Photo/Pascal Bastien)

FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte arrive in the St. Damasus Courtyard at the Vatican to meet with Pope Leo XIV, Friday, April 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

The Champs Elysees prepares for the mass that Pope Leo XIV will celebrate during his visit in Paris, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Teresa Suarez)

A pigeon flies past Pope Leo XIV as he arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)