Michel Delafontaine is the Program Director, Research and Innovation at Sustainable Westchester. Michel’s focus is on the future of Westchester Power, New York State’s first Community Choice Aggregation Program (CCA). He has been working with solar, wind, energy storage and transmission developers to integrate large-scale renewable energy generation into the CCA supply and engaging the Westchester communities in the additionality it will create.
Michel is also working on the capture and storage of solar light in chemical energy that could displace fossil fuels. He leads the organization’s efforts to develop “solar plus storage” projects in the County, including a demonstration of solar to electric vehicle energy transfer at Sustainable Westchester’s new headquarters in Mount Kisco.
In his previous ventures, Michel conducted research in renewable fuels for aviation under New York State Research and Development Agency and Small Business Innovation Research contracts. He collaborated on numerous white papers pertaining to the research and development of alternative aviation fuels. He also conducted a study on renewable energy technology risk scoring through modeling and Life Cycle Analysis. Michel’s reporting metrics also included the evaluation of the readiness level of renewable energy technologies, linking financial and energy returns. Michel’s expertise in energy storage includes flow batteries, Lithium-ion batteries as well as an investigation of the potential of metallic Lithium batteries for light aircraft.