A Community-Led Microgrid for the City of Chelsea

From 2021 to 2023, Synapse and five partners provided owner’s agent services to the City of Chelsea regarding implementation of Phase 1 of its virtual community-led microgrid. The partners include: Climable, Inc., Clean Energy Solutions, Inc. (CESI), GreenRoots, Inc., GDT Engineering, and LSO Energy Advisors.

Chelsea’s microgrid project is ground-breaking in that it (1) provides clean energy and resilience to non-contiguous critical facilities that support the community, and (2) addresses equity by directly and explicitly incorporating the needs and priorities of this environmental justice city into the design of and planning for the project.

The Owner’s Agent Team's services included stakeholder engagement, technical oversight, engineering review, legal review, regional coordination, and governance. Phase 1 included battery energy storage systems (BESS) at City Hall and the Police Department and rooftop solar PV at City Yard.