Why New York City Is Becoming a Hub for Climate Tech Startups

Brooklyn: Holding space for innovative startups

In Brooklyn, NYCEDC sees a wealth of opportunities to leverage the built environment in ways that push the city towards its clean energy goals.

NYCEDC’s climate tech pilot program at the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) in the Sunset Park neighborhood is designed to support startups looking to pilot their products. The four-million-square-foot campus offers companies space to test and demonstrate their technologies in live environments before they pitch to investors or go to market.

The BAT campus has become increasingly focused on supporting climate tech innovators. Whether they are testing urban transportation solutions or researching decarbonization strategies, green tech companies will likely find the right combination of tools and workspaces for their manufacturing or development needs on campus. In addition, BAT offers on-site childcare, a Makerspace advanced manufacturing shop, and numerous networking opportunities with more than 100 businesses.

NYCEDC is poised to make another massive investment in the climate tech ecosystem by transforming BAT into a Climate Innovation Hub. Backed by $100M in city funding, this hub will become a linchpin in the city’s climate sector, providing space and resources for companies to research, build, and test cutting-edge clean-tech solutions.

NineDot Energy: Hyper-Focused on NYC

“We’re bringing in the kinds of actors that make an exciting ecosystem for New York,” said NYCEDC’s Petinos. That excitement is palpable for green tech businesses like NineDot Energy, Petinos noted, as the city witnesses the growth of a robust green tech workforce.

By 2021, 133k jobs in NYC had been created by green economy startups and established businesses, according to NYCEDC. Today, NYCEDC predicts the green economy may generate as many as 400k jobs – or about 7% of the total workforce and almost $90B in GDP contribution—by 2040, based on projected estimates within the City of New York’s Green Economy Action Plan.

That indicates, according to Petinos, that New York City is the right place for growth-focused green tech companies like NineDot Energy to scale.

Petinos added that there’s another reason it’s easy for businesses like NineDot Energy to scale here: New York City can be a great place to live.

NYC: A World-Class Welcome

Businesses with staff relocating to New York will find welcoming, diverse, and multilingual communities. The city’s cultural amenities appeal to international workers asked to relocate. From a legendary food scene to world-class museums to a stunning waterfront, New York’s tech hubs and incubators are surrounded by a vibrant city. That’s a plus for workers who want a short commute from home to a tech hub and a rich cultural life.

NineDot Energy’s Adam Cohen echoed this sentiment, stating that his team’s connection to the city helps the company stay inspired to create new innovations.

“We have a fantastic team of employees and partners who understand New York City, who live and breathe New York City, and want to be a part of this solution.”

That highly motivated workforce is met with numerous opportunities to work on meaningful new projects, Cohen said. NineDot Energy has built battery storage units in several locations across the city since 2018. One of its units, a 3 MW energy storage site that supports thousands of households, was constructed in the Pelham Gardens neighborhood of the Bronx. It was turned on last year—just in time for the hottest summer ever recorded in the city.

“We are hyper-focused on NYC,” Cohen stated, emphasizing that while NineDot Energy’s solutions are localized, their aim is global impact. He believes that because New York’s policies, such as Local Law 97, have helped support companies like his in the green economy, they may inspire the rest of the world to adopt similar approaches to climate innovation.