Resilience Moves Onto the Term Sheet

For years, backup power was a line item you hid in the engineering budget. Now it’s creeping into leasing conversations.

A Fast Company op-ed argues that microgrids are moving from niche pilots to a core strategy for commercial landlords facing volatile prices, growing outage risk and new load from EVs and AI. It frames them as a way to increase energy security, cut long-term operating costs and differentiate buildings in competitive markets. In parallel, Leoch Lithium’s guide to battery energy storage systems (BESS) for commercial buildings lays out how batteries, when paired with solar and smart controls, allow operators to shave peaks, ride through short outages and support on-site EV charging without blowing through demand charges. Put simply: microgrids, solar, batteries and EV chargers are no longer “nice-to-have” sustainability features. They’re forming a new class of resilience infrastructure that tenants notice—and in many cases are willing to pay for.

What Tenants Are Quietly Telling Owners

Evidence is stacking up that resilience, electrification and EV readiness now influence leasing decisions:

• Sustainability and energy performance are becoming deal factors. CBRE’s latest occupier sentiment data shows 43% of companies say sustainable building features influence rent negotiations, and a growing share weigh the building’s sustainability credentials when choosing space.
  

• EV charging has crossed from perk to expectation. The same survey notes that about 40% of office tenants now factor EV charging stations into lease discussions—not as a dealbreaker, but as a clear differentiator. A separate CBRE analysis of European occupiers similarly reports that more than 60% now view EV charging as a valuable amenity.
  

• Renters will pay for charging access. A National Multifamily Housing Council survey, cited by Propmodo, found that 27% of apartment renters value EV charging enough to pay an average of $28 more per month for access, underscoring that charging is becoming part of the amenity stack, not a speculative bet.
  

• Green, electrified buildings lease better. JLL and other brokers report that tenants with net-zero targets are increasingly examining energy use intensity and electrification—not just a green label—when they select space. The World Economic Forum notes that sustainable office buildings see higher occupancy, rent uplifts and greater yields, as long as performance and disclosure back up the branding.
  

Resilience itself is harder to measure directly, but a 2024 ACEEE report estimated that building efficiency and grid-enabled technologies improve “passive survivability” and allow critical facilities to operate longer during outages—benefits that utilities and regulators often still undervalue.

Taken together, these signals say: tenants may not ask for “a microgrid,” but they are asking for buildings that stay on, support electrified fleets and help them meet climate and continuity goals.

How the Pieces Work Together

Microgrids, solar, batteries and EV chargers are not four separate projects. Done right, they’re one system.

The Fast Company piece highlights microgrids that combine onsite generation, storage and advanced controls so a property can island from the grid or ride through disruptions, while also optimizing when it buys or sells power. Leoch’s commercial BESS guide describes how batteries enable peak shaving—charging during off-peak hours and discharging when tariffs spike—reducing demand charges that can account for 30–70% of a large building’s monthly bill. Layering solar and EV charging on top of these innovations, we see:

• Solar offsets daytime load and feeds batteries;

• Batteries cover clouds, price spikes and short outages;

• EV chargers become managed loads, scheduled around tenants’ patterns and tariff windows rather than left to chance.

With AI-driven controls—either as part of a microgrid controller or a broader building OS—owners can coordinate all four: dispatching storage against tariffs, throttling or sequencing chargers at peak times, and prioritizing critical tenant loads when the grid is stressed.

The result is not just lower bills. It’s a story you can tell tenants about business continuity, climate goals and employee experience.

Questions for Investors and Owners to Ask

If you’re evaluating microgrids, BESS, solar and EV charging as a combined resilience investment, it helps to ask:

• What outage and power-quality risks do our anchor tenants face, and how do we quantify the cost of downtime?

• Can this system materially reduce demand charges and tariff exposure, and over what payback period?

• How visible will these upgrades be to tenants—will they see reliable charging, fewer disruptions and better ESG reporting, or just a line on a brochure?

• Who owns and operates the system long-term, and how flexible is it if tenants, tariffs or technology change?

From Cost Center to Competitive Edge

Microgrids, solar, batteries and EV chargers won’t show up as a single line item called “resilience premium” in your rent roll. Still, evidence suggests they’re already influencing which buildings win the tenants with the highest expectations—and the longest horizons.

For owners, the shift is subtle but profound: energy infrastructure is no longer just about keeping the lights on at the lowest possible cost. It’s about building assets that stay online, align with tenants’ climate commitments, and support the electrified lives and fleets of the people inside. In that world, investing in microgrids and BESS isn’t just an engineering decision. It’s a leasing strategy.