EV Charging + Battery Storage Case Study | Yonkers Honda, Yonkers, NY
How a Westchester County auto dealership deployed a Fortress Power eSpire Mini as part of the MOVE Program to support EV charging infrastructure, reduce energy costs, and build a smarter, more resilient microgrid on the lot.
Location: Yonkers, NY
Clients: Yonkers Honda
System: Fortress Power eSpire Mini
Installation Partners: Sprocket Power
Application: Managed microgrid, EV charging support, backup power
The Need
Auto dealerships are at the center of the EV transition in ways most businesses are not. As electric vehicle sales continue to grow, franchise dealers are expected to invest in on-site charging infrastructure to support inventory, customer test drives, and handoff of new vehicles. For Honda dealers in the New York metro area, that pressure is already real and accelerating.
But adding EV charging to a dealership is not as simple as plugging in a charger. High-power Level 3 charging draws significant electricity, and without a strategy to manage that demand, every charging session can spike a dealership’s peak demand charges, driving up utility costs each month. In a dense urban utility environment like Yonkers, where grid constraints and demand pricing are persistent realities, those costs add up quickly.
At the same time, the City of Yonkers has committed to a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. For local businesses, supporting that goal means finding ways to reduce reliance on grid power and integrate clean energy into daily operations. Yonkers Honda needed a solution that could support growing EV charging needs without simply passing the cost of that demand onto its monthly electricity bill, while also contributing to the city’s broader clean energy ambitions.
The Solution
Yonkers Honda joined the MOVE Program — Microgrid Optimized Vehicle Electrification — a turnkey EV charging and energy storage initiative developed by Sustainable Westchester and Sprocket Power to bring next-generation charging infrastructure to businesses, municipalities, and institutions across the region. The MOVE Program integrates solar generation, battery energy storage, and intelligent EV charger control into a fully managed, controllable platform, financed through an as-a-service model that requires no upfront capital investment from the host site. The project was supported by NYSERDA and developed in partnership with the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association (GNYADA), bringing the MOVE model directly into the dealership community.
At the core of the installation is the Fortress Power eSpire Mini, the compact, all-in-one commercial battery storage platform purpose-built for exactly this kind of application. The eSpire Mini integrates battery energy storage and an energy management system in a single unit, enabling intelligent coordination between on-site solar generation, the battery, and EV chargers. It operates natively at 208V AC without requiring external transformers, keeping the installation clean and efficient.
Sprocket Power managed the project from site evaluation through commissioning. The result is a fully integrated clean energy system combining solar generation, battery storage, and EV charging infrastructure into one controllable platform that gives Yonkers Honda the ability to manage and control its own energy usage, reduce costs, and strengthen grid resilience.
Results
The Yonkers Honda installation positions the dealership at the leading edge of EV infrastructure in the Westchester market. With the eSpire Mini managing energy flows across solar, storage, and charging, the dealership gains a smarter, more cost-efficient approach to powering its growing EV operation.
Peak demand charges driven by high-power EV charging sessions are actively managed rather than simply absorbed. Stored solar energy is deployed when utility rates are highest, reducing the cost of every charge. And with backup power capability built into the microgrid, the dealership is protected from grid interruptions that would otherwise take charging stations and customer-facing operations offline.
Beyond Yonkers Honda, the project is designed to serve as a replicable model for medium and small commercial properties looking to achieve the same level of reliability, sustainability, and energy autonomy. Developed in partnership with GNYADA and the MOVE Program, it establishes a clear pathway for dealerships across the region to integrate EV charging infrastructure intelligently, without outsized utility costs and without relying on grid power alone.
A Smarter Path to EV-Ready
As the automotive industry accelerates toward electrification, the dealerships that succeed will be the ones that build the energy infrastructure to match. Yonkers Honda’s partnership with Sprocket Power, Sustainable Westchester, NYSERDA, and Fortress Power demonstrates what that looks like in practice: a managed microgrid that supports EV charging, reduces peak demand costs, and keeps the lot running reliably through whatever the grid brings.
Together, they are demonstrating what the future of energy looks like: decentralized, impactful, and within reach.
The Fortress Power eSpire Mini was built for exactly this kind of deployment, compact enough for a dealership footprint, intelligent enough to manage complex energy flows, and reliable enough to serve as the backbone of a public-facing commercial operation.
Ready to explore what a commercial solar + storage system could do for your facility? Start a C&I Project Quote.
