Geared for Growth: MicroEra Power Decarbonizes Buildings to Create Sustainable Energy Solutions with Global Relevance
MicroEra Power provides thermal energy storage solutions to organizations in Greater Rochester to provide sustainable energy and help stabilize the grid. CEO and Co-founder Eleanor Rusling was featured on Geared for Growth on Wednesday, November 13th as part of Greater Rochester Chamber’s ongoing partnership with 13WHAM/FOX Rochester. Rusling shared more about the organization and its work, the partnerships they have to bring benefits to the community, and their goals for global expansion over the next ten years.
MicroEra Power is a startup based out of Rochester, NY that is working to creative innovative solutions for
long-duration, thermal energy storage. They use this energy to decarbonize the heating and cooling for commercial buildings. “The work we’re doing is a critical piece to the renewable energy transition,” Rusling shared. MicroEra Power helps to take energy that was created in a sustainable or renewable way, including wind, solar, and nuclear, and stores it to be used at off peak times when the sun may not be generating solar energy or wind may not be generating energy. “The work we’re doing is using off-peak electricity to power anything that can create heat or cold to shift the load to deliver on-peak heating and cooling when the grid would otherwise be very stressed,” Ellie shared. The organization was founded in 2015, and pivoted in 2019 to their current focus on thermal energy storage.
The work MicroEra Power is doing has community benefits and business benefits, and they are partnering with organizations throughout NYS to make their work possible. In addition to being a more sustainable source of energy, their work can also save businesses money on heating and cooling through the load shifting to deliver off-peak energy at on-peak times. The energy storage component will also benefit the community in extreme weather conditions where everyone is heating or cooling buildings at the same time, leading to brownouts due to a lack of energy availability on the grid. MicroEra Power is partnering with NYSERDA, the US Department of Energy, and other community organizations to make this possible.
Rusling shared that over the next five to ten years, MicroEra Power will continue to rapidly expand and commercialize their product throughout the United States and around the world. She shared their short term vision is to deploy the solution around the country, but in the next ten years sees it playing a critical role in ensuring habitability of developing countries around the world. “I’ve already had people from people in countries such as India, Pakistan, and several African nations reach out saying ‘I need this, our grid is so unstable’,” Rusling remarked.
To learn more, visit MicroEraPower.com.
Be sure to tune into FOX Rochester every Wednesday morning at 8:45 AM to hear exciting growth stories from Greater Rochester Chamber members on each segment of Geared for Growth.