- Working with Con Edison, Strobe completed the first sale of power from a customer’s on-site generator in New York City’s Zone J under NYISO’s DER Participation Model, New York’s framework for FERC Order 2222 implementation.
- New World Preparatory Charter School’s on-site generator now sells real-time energy and ancillary services into the wholesale market, showing that generation and storage assets buildings own can supply the grid as demand grows.
NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Strobe Power, a grid edge operator that turns on-site generation and storage at commercial buildings into dispatchable power plants, today announced it is the first company in New York City to turn a building into a power plant that sells energy into the wholesale market, executing the first sale of power from a behind-the-meter generator directly into the New York Independent System Operator’s (NYISO) real-time energy market under the Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Participation Model. Strobe streams real-time telemetry from the site directly to Con Edison’s network operations systems.
What It Takes to Turn a Hedge Against Rising Prices Into Grid Supply
Commercial and industrial electricity prices in New York rose about 19 percent between August 2024 and August 2026, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and installing onsite generators and batteries can provide building owners with a physical hedge against these rising prices. NYISO’s DER Participation Model lets those same assets sell power into the wholesale market alongside conventional power plants.
To participate, distributed assets must meet the same operational capabilities as traditional power generation – including real-time telemetry, protections, dispatch, and 24/7 energy trading – which has proven much more technically and operationally complex relative to legacy demand response programs.
Strobe meets those standards with in-house hardware and software: Strobe Edge, a control unit on each generator and battery; Strobe Interconnection, which manages the switches, relays and metering at the grid connection; and Strobe Operator, cloud software that forecasts and dispatches each site from a 24/7 control room.
“The grid has long treated commercial buildings as passive load, paying them to cut demand in occasional utility emergencies, at a price set in advance and on a best-effort basis,” said Keeley Erhardt, Co-founder and CEO of Strobe Power. “FERC Order 2222 lets those same buildings continuously bid into energy markets alongside conventional power plants, as long as they perform like one. Clearing the first bid in New York City shows a building can meet that standard. As our customers install generation or storage as insurance against outages and rising power prices, they don’t need to run a trading desk to get the most from those assets, or stand by for load-shedding calls. We actively manage the equipment to help increase customer savings alongside resilience, so they can focus on their business.”
The Capacity the Grid Needs Is Already Being Installed
The New World Preparatory Charter School in Staten Island installed a new on-site generator that would sit idle outside of outages, requiring school staff to manually turn it on. Strobe now dispatches it automatically, in sync with the grid, with no operational disruptions and no work for school staff. Results from this summer:
- Operates like a power plant, not a standby unit: Enabled by Strobe’s control and trading infrastructure, the school’s generator is bid into the market and follows real-time dispatch signals from NYISO, updated every six seconds, to generate power when it is needed.
- Delivers when power is worth the most: On the day New York’s grid was most strained, the generator ran in 100% of its scheduled intervals, including the NYISO system peak hour, as real-time prices reached $1,000–2,000/MWh, 10 to 20 times higher than on a normal summer day.
- Earns from several markets with one asset: The same generator earns from Con Edison’s demand response programs and NYISO’s energy and ancillary services markets, including 10-minute non-synchronous reserves, while also reducing demand charges and providing critical back up power.
“Resilience used to be the whole reason to have power on site. With energy prices going up , adding onsite generation and storage assets is becoming a way to manage costs, too,” said Angelo Aponte, Chairman of New World Preparatory Charter School. “Strobe makes our generator do both jobs. It’s there the moment we need backup, and the rest of the time it’s earning for the school, without adding anything to our team’s plate. We don’t even notice anything has changed until we see our lower electricity bill. That flexibility matters when every dollar we save on energy can go back to our students. Strobe’s been so effective, we’re partnering with them to add onsite battery storage to improve our economics even more.”
A Market-Aware Power Plant in Every Building
Strobe is now enrolling commercial, light industrial, hospitality, and office properties across Con Edison’s service territory, from buildings planning new generation or storage to those with equipment already on site. Owners and operators can request a site assessment at hello@strobepower.com.
About Strobe Power
Strobe Power is the grid edge operator for commercial and industrial buildings. Its on-site controller, grid interconnection system, and cloud software run a building’s generators and batteries in real time, lowering electricity bills, keeping power on through outages, and selling into wholesale energy markets, delivering dependable capacity the grid can call on as demand outpaces available supply. Founded in 2024 and headquartered in New York, NY, Strobe Power is qualified as a Scheduling Coordinator in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) market and the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM), as well as with the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and holds Market Based Rate Authority from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). For more information, visit https://strobepower.com/, and follow Strobe on LinkedIn and X.
Media Contact
press@strobepower.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/584dd8ad-1565-4219-8339-3aa4df02633f
