Partnership to provide energy improvement, education at Syracuse Boys & Girls Club

SYRACUSE — National Grid is launching a multi-phase partnership to provide energy-efficiency upgrades and technology education at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Syracuse location at 2100 E. Fayette St. in Syracuse.

The utility is partnering with the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation and Warner Energy on the Adopt-A-Club initiative that involves the efficiency work, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education through curriculum development, and volunteerism through tutoring, mentoring, and coaching.

“National Grid will commit $100,000 to make this happen,” Melanie Littlejohn, Central New York regional executive at National Grid, said during her remarks at a June 27 event announcing the initiative.

Support from the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation will provide improvements to the club’s gym and basketball court, according to National Grid.

The Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation is described as an organization that “works to enrich the lives of kids in need within the Central New York community, as well as provide support for eliminating cancer through research and advocacy” on a National Grid news release about the partnership.

The partnership also involves Warner Energy of Clay, which will provide alternative-energy mechanisms to reduce the facility’s carbon footprint.

Warner Energy will install solar panels on the facility’s roof. It’s estimated the panels will save the agency a total of about 800,000 kilowatt hours of energy over the 25-year lifetime of the system and reduce nearly 564 metric tons of carbon dioxide over that quarter-century time period, according to National Grid.

Those measurements are equivalent of planting nearly 14,500 trees or removing 180 vehicles from the road, the utility added.

The solar project will help reduce operational costs for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Syracuse, says Zach Drescher, head of sales for Warner Energy.

“We’re going to be installing a monitoring screen and educational curriculum to help educate the students here on the benefit of solar [energy], daily production [of it] … analyze that, and create opportunities for them in the future,” Drescher says.

After the electrical and structural assessments involved, Warner Energy is hoping to begin the project within a three to four month time frame, he says.

Warner Energy designs and develops solar projects for clients throughout the U.S. and distributes solar modules and related components to solar installers. The Warner Energy campus includes a technology-development laboratory, solar-module manufacturing lines, a meterological-monitoring station, solar-module testing and demonstration arrays, and focus center for research, development, and manufacturing of new renewable technologies.

National Grid (NYSE: NGG) delivers electricity to about 3.3 million customers in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The utility describes itself as the largest distributor of natural gas in the northeastern U.S., serving about 3.4 million customers in the same three states.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Syracuse is a youth development agency which aims to “inspire and enable all young people in the Syracuse area, especially those who need us most, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens,” according to its website.

The organization has served thousands of kids for more than a hundred years, Kathleen Centolella, chair of the board at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Syracuse, said during the event.

“In addition to the facility’s upgrades, which will be huge, adding the component of education around science and math and technology is so exciting to us,” Centolella says.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com