SYRACUSE — A handful of area businesses developing clean-energy technologies recently received a helping hand to bring their products to market. CenterState CEO, National Grid, and State Assemblyman William Magnarelli (D–Syracuse) on April 19 awarded five Central New York companies grant funding to assist in commercializing clean-energy technologies. The awards are part of the Syracuse […]
SYRACUSE — A handful of area businesses developing clean-energy technologies recently received a helping hand to bring their products to market.
CenterState CEO, National Grid, and State Assemblyman William Magnarelli (D–Syracuse) on April 19 awarded five Central New York companies grant funding to assist in commercializing clean-energy technologies.
The awards are part of the Syracuse Center of Excellence’s (SyracuseCoE) Commercialization Assistance Program (CAP).
The Syracuse CoE hosted the announcement of the grant awards that totaled $250,000.
The CAP awards included $50,000 for Air Innovations of Cicero for its work on a “green” metal hydride for air conditioning.
“This is Air Innovations’ third CAP award,” said Edward Bogucz, executive director of the SyracuseCoE, during the awards ceremony.
Air Innovations’ metal-hydride product, in partnership with Ringwood, N.J.–based Ergenics Corp., will convert waste-heat into a next-generation air-conditioning system.
As it’s described in the project summary, “it will use no compressor or ozone-depleting refrigerant gases and will require less electricity to operate than commercially available units on the market today, thus improving reliability, reducing life-cycle costs, and protecting the environment.”
Cortland Research, LLC of Homer will use $50,000 to commercialize the POUNCE (point of use network control of electrical) system, an energy-conservation system the firm created that provides data and autonomous control for reducing energy costs, according to the project summary.
Engineering firm O’Brien & Gere of Syracuse receives a $50,000 grant to accelerate development of a water-quality monitor to detect taste and odor.
“O’Brien & Gere received a CAP award in the first round, and now here in the seventh round … collaborating with SUNY ESF [State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry] and the development of technology for monitoring water quality,” said Bogucz.
WavElectric of Ithaca and Syracuse will also use a $50,000 award to develop and test the first WE50 wave-energy converter prototype for the analysis of fluid and structure interaction.
WavElectric president and CEO Allessandro A.E. Anzani described the company’s mission while offering his remarks during the event.
“That is providing a cheap, portable, and durable generator that harvests power from the huge, renewable, and untouched source that is our oceans,” Anzani said.
The company is currently operating at The Tech Garden at 235 Harrison St. in downtown Syracuse.
Healthway Home Products of Pulaski will use an award of nearly $50,000 to assist in bringing to market a disinfecting-filtration system technology for schools, health care, and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified commercial buildings.
Collectively, the winning firms are expected to use the grants to retain about 100 jobs in Central New York, according to SyracuseCoE.
Through seven rounds, the CAP program has awarded more than $1.75 million and supported the growth of 24 upstate New York companies. The funding is made possible by a state grant administered through SyracuseCoE and CenterState CEO.
National Grid provided $100,000 in support of the CAP program.
The funding is part of the utility’s Clean Tech Incubation Program, which supports initiatives that facilitate formation of new ventures or growth of high-potential small ventures and also to make buildings more marketable for the creation of new jobs in the clean-tech industry.
Established in 2001, CAP grants are awarded for projects that commercialize new products and services in the fields of indoor-environmental quality, water resources, and clean and renewable energy, which are the three focus areas of the SyracuseCoE.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com