We’re energy business innovators
NineDot’s name derives from the classic mathematical puzzle for sparking out-of-the-box solutions. David, Adam and Nalin combined their skills and experiences in clean-energy analysis, science and entrepreneurship to build exciting and important urban energy projects using “outside-the-box thinking.
Founded in 2015, currently based at the NYU Urban Future Lab in Brooklyn and backed by The Carlyle Group and Manulife, we’re committed to providing clean energy solutions to the New York area and beyond.
Mission statement
At NineDot Energy, our team of creative collaborators shares a passion to design and execute innovative solutions that leverage technology, policy, and markets to support a sustainable future.
Vision statement
Climate change is the most critical issue of our time: as such, we aspire to have a positive impact on the environment and the society in which we live and work.
NineDot's story is built on experience and expertise
When a chaos physicist, a finance professor and a clean-tech entrepreneur got together, good things happened.
Before 2014, David created SolarCity’s SolarLease, driving a multi-billion $ industry; Adam joined the U.S. Department of Energy after receiving his PhD in physics; Nalin published a breakthrough paper on residential solar risk. So with a foundation in solar strategy, business, finance, science and technology, NineDot Energy’s co-founders (David Arfin, Adam Cohen and Nalin Kulatilaka) met and began their work together
Our Co-founders created CertainSolar (the predecessor to NineDot Energy), and self-funded its work while they receiving a $490k matching grant from the SunShot Initiative of the Department of Energy, concentrated on projects for community-scale energy and leased the company’s first sites in New York City
As CertainSolar began work on two fuel cell projects, the Company achieved its first revenues and focused on local distributed battery storage sites, initially in Staten Island and the Bronx, to support NYC’s grid. We received growth capital from Carlyle to expand the team and our project pipeline while also announcing our V2G (vehicle-to-grid) pilot
Now NineDot Energy (reflecting the Company’s broader energy vision), the Company announced the first Tesla Megapack Site in New York, a milestone in the city’s energy transition and a harbinger of things to come. Our first battery storage site in the Bronx was under construction. NineDot received an $85 million construction-to-term debt facility provided by CIT and SMBC. We held a ribbon-cutting on August 9, 2022, attended by the Bronx Borough President and representatives from the Public Service Commission, NYSERDA and ConEd
NineDot’s first battery energy site in the Northeast Bronx went live, ready to strengthen the local power grid and provide stable, reliable and resilient power to the surrounding community, and Starbucks became our anchor subscriber. We were named #5 on Crain’s New York Business 2023 list of 100 Best Places to Work in New York City. The company received a $25 million revolving credit debt facility provided by NY Green Bank (NYGB), a division of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). After months of hard work and collaboration between NineDot and the Bronx Charter School for Better Learning 2, we revealed a clean energy mural, created by students, that now hangs outside our battery site across the street from the school
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NineDot received an additional $225 million equity capital commitment from Manulife Investment Management as well as Carlyle. NineDot also secured a $13 million real estate financing deal with SolaREIT. Construction began on multiple NineDot battery sites. Adam Cohen, NineDot co-founder and CTO, was elected to the NY-BEST Board of Directors
NineDot is on track to develop, build and operate more than 400 megawatts (MW) of clean energy systems by the end of 2026 that will strengthen the local power grid infrastructure and provide clean, reliable and resilient power to tens of thousands of New York households and businesses, in support of New York State’s mission to achieve 100% clean energy by 2040