BoxPower In The News

Grass Valley’s BoxPower installs PG&E’s first solar-powered remote grid system

The contract represents a new use for BoxPower’s 10-year-old technology. The company’s developed turnkey, stand-alone solar-powered electric systems with backup battery and generator power intended for uses far off electrical grids in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. But with wildfires and fire-threatened de-energization of California’s electrical grid, BoxPower has now found customers closer to home.

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June 7, 2021

BoxPower and PG&E Commission the Utility’s First Remote Microgrid, Reducing Wildfire Risk for Customers in High Fire-Threat Area

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March 18, 2021

BoxPower Provides Remote Grid to Help Mitigate Fire Risk in California

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October 30, 2020

MCHC Gets BoxPower Microgrid Back-Up Power

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Recent News

April 1, 2022

Microgrids with Propane-Fueled Backup Systems Deliver Reliable, Resilient Power

According to Angelo Campus, CEO and co-founder of BoxPower, a focus on achieving complete power reliability was essential while designing microgrids for PG&E and Liberty Utilities.

“Pairing propane-fueled generators with solar power and battery storage ensures a constant energy supply for BoxPower customers. Integrating propane for backup power increases the reliability of the overall system. Propane fills the niche as an always-available power source that smooths out the intermittencies of solar and wind resources,” he said.

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March 29, 2022

Kayenta Chapter secures grant to power 24 homes with solar energy

December 22, 2021

Solar Builder Selects: 30 of our favorite solar products from 2021

September 30, 2021

Shifting focus: Grass Valley-based energy company brings work closer to home

Other aspects of the company have evolved over time, including the company’s marketplace focus, according to Nesbit. Earlier on, she explained, BoxPower placed a heavier focus on disaster relief — for instance, developing systems to be installed in Puerto Rico following the 2017 impact of Hurricane Maria.

Given the current “advanced and accelerated wildfire season,” the need for BoxPower’s services has in recent years grown in the company’s home state, said Nesbit.

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September 27, 2021

Case study: When it makes sense for utilities to island its customers

August 30, 2021

Now Will Infrastructure Investors Finally View Microgrids As Resiliency?

First of all, we need as an investor class to recognize that emergency microgrids are no longer just the realm of charity organizations like the Footprint Project or emerging economies like the efforts of startups like BoxPower and others. For years, seeing “microgrids in a box” ideas, I would ask the entrepreneurs where their initial markets would be, and they would mention disaster-relief organizations and distant global markets. Now those markets are right here in the United States and the needs are more stark. Those revenue streams in domestic markets have shifted from “maybe someday” to a sad reality.

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June 24, 2021

PG&E Commissions Microgrid Near Yosemite National Park

Pacific Gas & Electric, the utility company that serves much of northern California, has commissioned the first of many standalone microgrids in Mariposa county near Yosemite National Park. Built and installed by BoxPower, the remote grid will permanently replace the overhead distribution power lines that once served a handful of customers in Briceburg, a community located in a High Fire Threat District of the Sierra Nevada foothills. The new microgrid will improve reliability while significantly reducing the risk of wildfires in the area.

BoxPower says such microgrids may be used to supply other remote locations that are served by conventional transmission lines that traverse other HFTD areas. The microgrids are expected to cost less to build and maintain than building and servicing transmission lines.

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June 9, 2021

Solar microgrid to offer protection from fire threats

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has commissioned its first hybrid renewable microgrid, built and installed by BoxPower.

The microgrid is planned as a permanent replacement for overhead distribution lines and is the first in a series of planned microgrids, the utility said. PG&E said it has identified hundreds of areas that would benefit from microgrid deployment and has targeted up to 20 operational remote grid sites by the end of 2022.

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June 7, 2021

PG&E gets rid of power lines in Briceburg Fire area

Pacific Gas and Electric is the first utility company in the continental United States to deploy a stand-alone power system or remote grid that helps with the cost and aims to prevent wildfires.

“This area was affected by the Briceburg Fire, it took out power lines that were bringing power to these customers. For the past two years, I believe they were running off of backup generators,” said Michele Nesbit, the COO & Co-founder of BoxPower Inc.

PG&E hired BoxPower Inc. to design and engineer the new system which will only provide power to customers in the area.

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May 12, 2021

Microgrid Knowledge Names Finalists for Greater Good Awards

“The finalists are from throughout the world and demonstrate the range of humanitarian benefits that microgrids offer, from bringing power, water and medical care to remote villages to providing affordable and reliable power to low-income communities,” said Elisa Wood, editor-in-chief of Microgrid Knowledge and creator of the awards program. “This year’s finalists include a tiny home community serving families experiencing homelessness.”

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April 7, 2021

The role of battery storage in the energy transition

PG&E partnered with BoxPower, a California-based modular solar energy systems provider, to build an island power grid. The system is expected to run on renewable power nearly 90% of the time.

“An on-site power system will eliminate much of the maintenance and vegetation management costs needed for power lines and help mitigate the risk of future wildfires sparked by electrical infrastructure,” said the two companies in a statement.

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April 1, 2021

First PG&E standalone solar grid near Yosemite is attempt to stop sparking California fires

The Briceburg grid was designed and installed by BoxPower, an energy company based out of Grass Valley. PG&E, which owns the grid, will be able to monitor and control the system with BoxPower.

The new standalone grid in Briceburg means PG&E won’t have to rebuild 1.3 miles of distribution lines that extended down into the remote river canyon near Yosemite. Those lines were destroyed in the October 2019 Briceburg Fire.

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Mar 25, 2021

Will California have another year of record-setting wildfires?

In the tiny California town of Briceburg, at the edge of Yosemite National Park, workers are installing a new solar microgrid from a startup called BoxPower. The local utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, used to send power to the community through long distribution lines that traveled through remote areas—the same type of equipment that sparked disastrous wildfires such as the one that swept through the town of Paradise in 2018, killing at least 86 people. With the new grid, which generates power for the community locally, that dangerous long-distance infrastructure no longer needs to exist.

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Mar 19, 2021

PG&E begins implementation of remote grids for fire mitigation, resiliency and customer service

Microgrid provider BoxPower announced this week that it is designing and installing a standalone power system in Briceburg, California to help mitigate fire risk in the area.

The remote grid will support Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in its wildfire mitigation and energy resilience efforts in the face of intensifying fire risk across the state. Slated for completion in April, the integrated solar, battery, and generator system will replace traditional power distribution lines once servicing the unincorporated community.

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Mar 19, 2021

Replacing Rural Power Lines With Resilient Microgrids

“We do a fully integrated solar, battery, and generator system, prefabricated in a shipping container that you can buy just like you would buy a car. You pick out which model you want and you order it,” Angelo shared. “We have standardized modular systems, individual units ranging from 5-100 kW output capacity and the ability to link multiple those units together to address just about any size load with almost no engineering or customization involved.”

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Mar 5, 2021

Startup of the Month: BoxPower

“Medical facilities and utilities are playing catch-up, as the grid and distribution lines are not set up to handle wildfire risk or disasters,” says Michele Nesbit, a cofounder and chief operating officer of BoxPower. “We’re going to continue to see outages unless we add microgrids.”

BoxPower’s modular systems are plug-and-play solar solutions, which start at 3.5 kilowatts (which can run most appliances in small homes with 2-4 occupants). The fireproof and waterproof boxes include solar panels, inverters, battery storage and a backup generator (that uses diesel or propane) with an optional control system for monitoring.

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Feb 8, 2021

Santa Clara County Launches Tiny Homes Site For Unhoused Families With Children

Feb 7, 2021

Santa Clara County Officials To Celebrate The Opening Of Tiny-Homes Shelter On Monday

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Jan 18, 2021

BoxPower CEO on the growing microgrid market for small businesses

Rural communities, small businesses, and manufacturing are now able to find flexible and affordable ready-to-install microgrid products. BoxPower CEO Angelo Campus is witnessing a rapid change in microgrid demand. “As outages increase across the country and world, the value of a microgrid is increasing rapidly,” says Campus. “This combined with the decreasing cost of inputs will cause the microgrid adoption to skyrocket.”

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Nov 3, 2020

Case study: MCHC Health Centers’ solar battery microgrid

A pioneering collaboration between MCHC Health Centers, Direct Relief and BoxPower, is adding crucial backup power plan for MCHC. Recent wildfires spurred this partnership, which has resulted in a $1.2 million solar battery microgrid power solution that will operate MCHC’s Hillside Health Center critical facilities for as long as necessary during a power outage, while significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Power outages caused by recent fires or fire threats caused MCHC to shutdown several times in 2018 and 2019. A planned power shut down in 2019 caused the closure of all four MCHC locations, resulting in missed visits by approximately 2,400 patients, a loss of vaccines, income loss for staff, and a loss of $300,000 in revenue. Given the extent of the losses, both to the community and the organization, MCHC quickly began looking for backup power solutions.

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Oct 10, 2020

California Energy Commission funding energy storage, microgrid firms

The California Energy Commission (CEC) selected UK-based Invinity Energy Systems for funding as part of an initiative for long-duration, non-lithium energy storage with the use of its vanadium flow batteries (VFBs) technology. CEC also awarded modular microgrid energy solution company, BoxPower, a $1.2 million dollar grant to further develop its software and hardware solution at 15 microgrid sites in California.

The three-year microgrid project, under the designation of California Title 24 Advanced Power Utilization Technology, will provide insights into energy cost reduction strategies and increased energy resiliency. BoxPower’s work will seek to drive cost reductions, open new cash flow opportunities for batteries, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and measure non-energy societal benefits, such as resiliency.

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Sept 28, 2020

97% Renewable Microgrid to Replace Fire-Vulnerable Line in California During Wildfire Season

A 97% renewable microgrid will allow Liberty Utilities to de-energize four miles of transmission line located in a remote Sierra Nevada location during wildfire season in California.

The microgrid, from BoxPower and owned by Liberty Utilities, a regulated utility with about 50,000 customers on the West side of Lake Tahoe, is made up of 20 kW of solar, 68 kWh of storage and propane backup. It’s expected to use the propane only 3% of the time.

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Sept 28, 2020

Angelo Campus electrifies the renewable energy business with BoxPower

Since his graduation in 2016, Princeton alumnus Angelo Campus has worked to ensure anyone needing quick and dependable access to a power source can find it in a simple configuration: a shipping container equipped with solar panels, a battery for energy storage and a backup generator.

His company, BoxPower, builds and distributes these units — what are known as containerized microgrids — and has deployed them in places like Puerto Rico, which lost electrical infrastructure in 2017 due to Hurricane Maria, and the Alaskan backcountry, where Alaska Natives live far removed from electrical power sources.

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Sept 22, 2020

Liberty Utilities plans solar + storage microgrid for wildfire mitigation in NWA plan

Last week, BoxPower announced that Liberty Utilities will be using its system to set up a microgrid at a remote mountain research station. The companies said the project will save millions by replacing high fire-risk distribution lines with a containerized solar + storage microgrid.

The project is the result of a request-for-offers issued by Liberty Utilities for a wildfire-mitigation solution to avoid costly replacement of the transmission lines that serve Berkeley University’s Sagehen Creek Field Station in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California.

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Sept 17, 2020

BoxPower gets utility customers seeking remote power

BoxPower has found a new niche, selling stand-alone solar power units to utilities to provide their customers remote power, which is far cheaper in some cases than hardening electric grids to withstand wildfires.

Liberty, a subsidiary of Ontario, Canada-based Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. (NYSE: AQN), was faced with having to “harden” from fire damage a 4-mile stretch of power lines that serve the research station, and that would have cost $3 million. Instead, Liberty chose to install a BoxPower station on the site, Barkow said. It will save the utility more than $2 million.

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June 30, 2020

BoxPower vies for $1 million grant to expand self-contained electric power technology

BoxPower, the company that builds turnkey solar power and battery units, is vying for a $1 million grant from the California Energy Commission to further commercialize its products.

BoxPower’s technology was developed in 2011 at Princeton University, with research supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. The company was spun out of Princeton in 2016, when it began marketing and selling its portable power unit in a standard shipping container.

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Mar 18, 2020

Snowstorms, Remote Locale, and Practical Jokes Can’t Stop Alaskan Microgrid

A sudden snowstorm in a far Northwest arctic locale, sleeping in a laundromat (for no better place) and practical jokes were only some of the challenges facing Grass Valley, Calif.-based BoxPower in deploying a new solar/storage microgrid in the indigenous village of Deering in remote Northwest Alaska.

The installation is the second microgrid for the company in Alaska and second involving NANA, a regional corporation made up of 14,500 Iñupiat shareholders, or descendants, who live in or have roots in the region.

“We learned that logistics and supply chain are the most difficult part of Alaskan microgrids,” Campus said.

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Feb 24, 2020

From Gold Rush to Microgrid Push in Nevada County, California

Pacific Gas & Electric’s controversial public-safety power shutoffs (PSPS) hit the area hard last fall. The distress and economic damage has spurred county leaders and business owners to pursue microgrids and back-up power systems before the 2020 wildfire season begins.

“A lot of companies shy away from battery projects because it’s outside their wheelhouse, outside their comfort zones,” Campus said. BoxPower’s goal was to make a solar and battery system as simple and easy to install as possible. The modular systems range from 3.5 kW to more than 22 kW per container, with options for additional solar via integrated rooftop or ground mount. Linked systems are capable of generating up to 528 kW. The company, which was a finalist in Microgrid Knowledge’s Greater Good Award competition last year, finances the full cost of a “minibox” for as low as $250 per month.

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Jan 17, 2020

Startup with Valley ties helps earthquake-ravaged Puerto Rico

A California startup with ties to the Central Valley is bringing some light to Puerto Rico after the island has been hit with a large series of earthquakes since the end of December.

BoxPower Inc., a start-up that provides rapidly deployable solar electric microgrids in shipping containers, has delivered two of the of the systems to the earthquake stricken region of Puerto Rico, which has suffered more than $110 million in damages and seen more than 500 homes topple over.

The systems serve as solar generators, providing power when conventional power grids are down.

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Jan 17, 2020

Grass Valley Microgrid Company BoxPower Inc. delivers two rapidly deployable microgrid systems to earthquake stricken region of Puerto Rico

BoxPower Inc., a California start-up company providing rapidly deployable renewable microgrids in shipping containers, got their start in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, when they deployed one of their Modular Solar Microgrids at a community center providing food and shelter to those impacted by the hurricane. Now, almost two years later, BoxPower has returned to Puerto Rico in the wake of the earthquake to deploy two more microgrids: at a school resilience center and medical clinic in the south of the island, both of which have been impacted by the recent earthquakes.

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Jan 7, 2020

BoxPower getting bids for big orders of its solar energy containers

California’a multiple widespread power outages in 2019 have given a big boost to BoxPower Inc., developer of portable and turnkey solar power and battery units that are housed in shipping containers.

The company is currently appraising bids and requests for proposals by California counties and utilities for orders of 10 to 30 units, said Anderson Barkow, co-founder of the company.

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Dec 31, 2019

7 companies making their mark with commercial microgrids

Increasingly, U.S. businesses are concluding that they need the type of business continuity, cost predictability and sustainability goal-aligned energy solutions that microgrid-plus-storage installations offer.

“After two weeks of outages and utility shutoffs, many businesses have had to shut their doors because of cash flow issues or because they lost their inventory at a critical time of the year,” said Angelo Campus, founder and CEO of BoxPower, a startup that makes pre-engineered microgrid plus storage systems that can be dispatched and stored in shipping containers.

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Nov 18, 2019

This single shipping container can start powering a small renewable grid in less than a day

Inside a shipping container currently en route to a school in Puerto Rico, a solar microgrid is ready for deployment: As soon as the container arrives, the system, from a startup called BoxPower, can be assembled and begin providing power in less than a day.

The system, designed for use both immediately after disasters and to make communities more resilient to future disasters, is easy to rapidly install. “We jokingly call ourselves the Ikea of microgrids because there is some assembly required, but it is color-coded, pre-cut, and pre-drilled,” says Angelo Campus, CEO and founder of California-based BoxPower. “And anyone who can assemble an Ikea dresser can assemble our solar array on top of the container. It doesn’t require any heavy equipment or machinery.”

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Oct 24, 2019

PG&E outages leave patients at rural health clinics dangerously vulnerable, experts say

The widespread PG&E power shutdowns are depriving California’s rural and indigent residents of critical care from community health clinics that they have come to count on not only for primary care but also for many types of emergency care, leaders in the industry told The Bee.

Founders of Grass Valley’s BoxPower, a company that offers solar-powered microgrids that can store and supply power directly to structures, said they’ve been hearing from a number of pharmaceutical and healthcare organizations looking for backup power sources.

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Oct 13, 2019

PG&E blackouts spur sales of BoxPower solar/battery units

California’s recent power blackout episode triggered the strongest sales ever for BoxPower Inc., the maker of a turnkey solar power and battery unit in a box.

Co-founder Anderson Barkow said last week, as Pacific Gas & Electric Co. shut off power to 734,000 homes and businesses in 35 California counties, BoxPower saw its “busiest week in terms of inquiries ever.”

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July 15, 2019

BoxPower takes first place at annual Princeton-HBS Startup Showcase

Clean tech startup BoxPower(link is external) shone brightly at the fourth annual Princeton-Harvard Business School Startup Showcase. As the winner of the audience vote, BoxPower will be fast-tracked to the final selection round of the Princeton Alumni Angels(link is external) fall pitch night, and won the opportunity to pitch at an upcoming HBS Alumni Angels of Greater New York(link is external) pitch night. BoxPower will also receive mentorship from PAA.

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July 14, 2019

Container Microgrids: Lowering Costs Through Modular Design and Streamlined Engineering

In the ongoing effort to lower the cost of microgrid deployment, one concept that continues to evolve is that of the modular microgrid, best expressed in a system that can fit inside a single shipping container.

In an effort to bring clean energy to remote customers at affordable prices, the California-based company BoxPower has been standardizing and continuing to refine designs for small-scale power systems that can fit into a container. BoxPower engineer Michele Nesbit says “we’re social impact-focused, so designing cost-effective systems is a key motivation for us.”

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Feb 25, 2019

DOE Co-Funded PV Project Brings Fuel Cost Savings to Three Alaska Native Villages—Starting With Buckland

When people living in the Alaska Native community of Buckland, population 425, visit the local Native store, they may see price tags of $46 attached to laundry soap and $26 for a quart of oil. One way to reduce or at least stabilize expenses is to cut diesel fuel costs by tapping into renewable resources for energy production.

The roughly $2-million project, $1 million of which comes from a 2016 DOE grant, involves installing over 400 kilowatts (kW) of PV arrays in these villages, which are expected to produce about 420,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually, displacing over 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel. The containerized solar system was provided by BoxPower Inc., a California energy company specializing in rapidly deployable solar and battery systems for rural energy projects.

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Nov 1, 2018

Forbes 30 Under 30 2019: Social Entrepreneurs

BoxPower manufactures solar microgrids that can be quickly deployed via shipping containers to communities in need. Each unit can be assembled (without specialized equipment or technicians) in just five hours and powers six homes–or can be linked together to form a localized grid. BoxPower was used in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and has offset 6.2 million pounds of CO2 to date.

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July 28, 2018

BoxPower: Tiny power hybrid microgrids aids rural Puerto Rico and Alaska

Ariving in a shipping container, the 18,000 lb. kit has solar panels, battery storage and a backup diesel generator — no electrician needed for assembly.

Our system is standardized, all the electrical work is done, there’s no need for an electrician. It’s sort of like an IKEA set,” Angelo Campus, CEO of BoxPower, told Microgrid Knowledge. Campus also told Yale Climate Connections that the solar array can be set up in five hours.

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July 29, 2018

Alaska Is Offering Entrepreneurs a Huge Renewable Energy Opportunity

Beyond coaching and connections, this year Launch Alaska has invested up to $75,000 in each of their startups. This year’s cohort of four start-ups competed before the Demo Day audience. They presented their concepts, progress, and investment opportunities. The popular winner, BoxPower, is a classic example of what Vanderburg is looking for: an ideal alternative energy solution for Alaska.

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June 18, 2018

With this kit, you can set up a solar-powered microgrid.

Eight months after Hurricane Maria, power had still not been fully restored to the town of Mariana, Puerto Rico.

So a company called BoxPower shipped solar panels, batteries, and a backup generator to power a café, laundromat, and community center there. But unlike most renewable energy systems, this one snapped together almost like Legos – with no engineers or electricians needed.

Campus: “If you can put together an Ikea bed-frame you can probably put together our microgrid system.”

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June 11, 2018

Remote Puerto Rico Community Rebuilds with Microgrid “Like an IKEA Set”

Eight months on from the devastation of Hurricane Maria, the 3,160 inhabitants of Puerto Rico’s mountainous Mariana remain without grid power. Tired of waiting, community members recently took matters into their own hands with the help of a modular microgrid.

BoxPower’s modular microgrid is a hybrid system with solar power, battery storage, and backup diesel generation to increase resilience and provide critical load at the very least. The system arrives fully packaged in a shipping container.

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March 18, 2018

What’s in the box? — BoxPower Inc., CEO, Angelo Campus is on a mission to bring renewable & environmentally-sustainable energy to the world

Across the globe, 1.2 billion people are living in the dark. One in seven — 16 percent of the world’s population — have little or no access to electricity.

A Grass Valley man is on a mission to help solve the energy poverty crisis.

Angelo Campus is the founder and CEO of BoxPower Inc., which is quite literally power in a box. The renewable energy startup company provides off-grid communities with affordable, portable microgrid infrastructures in shipping containers.

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Oct 12, 2017

Princeton Grads' Energy Startup Provides Power To Native Americans Protesting Oil Pipeline

In mid-August BoxPower, a renewable energy startup, responded delivering one of their off-grid system units to support the Ramapough Lenape Tribe’s cause by powering their campsite. BoxPower’s renewable energy system is self-contained within a 20ft. shipping container, and designed to be easily transported and quickly deployed to off-grid sites. Each unit has the capacity to distribute renewable energy to up to five households, and consists of a pre-assembled solar array, wind power unit, bio-diesel generator, and batteries for storage.

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