VESTAL — Construction has kicked off on Binghamton University’s smart energy research and development (R&D) facility. The school on Aug. 27 held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new $70 million, 114,000-square-foot building at the Innovative Technologies Complex in Vestal. Binghamton University sees the new facility as part of its “pursuit of path-breaking research” on energy-efficient […]
VESTAL — Construction has kicked off on Binghamton University’s smart energy research and development (R&D) facility.
The school on Aug. 27 held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new $70 million, 114,000-square-foot building at the Innovative Technologies Complex in Vestal.
Binghamton University sees the new facility as part of its “pursuit of path-breaking research” on energy-efficient technologies, according to a news release from the university.
Plans call for connecting the facility to the Center of Excellence building on the campus, says Harvey Stenger, president of Binghamton University.
He spoke with the Business Journal News Network on Sept. 5.
The Center of Excellence houses the school’s centers that examine energy efficiency available through electronic systems, battery-research activities, Stenger adds.
With a direct economic impact of $78.5 million on Broome and Tioga counties during its construction phase, the smart-energy project will support more than 500 local jobs, including about 200 construction jobs, the university said.
After construction, new employees will generate $2.5 million of economic impact annually in the local economy, it added.
The smart energy R&D facility is a “direct result” of the NYSUNY 2020 plan that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature approved in 2012.
The state intended the NYSUNY 2020 Challenge Grant program to “help New York’s public universities become a leading catalyst for regionally-focused economic development while maintaining affordability and improving academic quality for all students,” according to an Aug. 9, 2011 news release from Cuomo’s office.
Nearly a year later, Cuomo announced approval of Binghamton University’s NYSUNY 2020 challenge-grant proposal that included two objectives, according to an Aug. 8, 2012 news release on the Binghamton University website.
The objectives were construction of the $70 million, smart energy R&D facility and the addition of 2,000 students, 150 faculty and 175 professional and support staff to develop new and strengthen existing academic programs.
Under the plan, Binghamton was set to receive $35 million in capital-construction funds for the smart-energy facility and had to implement a rational tuition plan to support the hiring of new researchers and faculty, expansion of academic offerings and facilities, development of public/private research partnerships, and expansion of technology development in high-tech fields, according to the news release.
Binghamton then had to match the state funding with $35 million of its own, says Stenger.
“It comes from some of our reserves as well as some of our research income that we get from research grants and they’re called indirect costs, so that helps us support the capital expenditures,” he adds.
Smart-energy proposal
Binghamton University considered two different subject matters for its proposal in the NYSUNY2020 program, including health sciences and smart energy.
“When we looked at what the other SUNY campuses were doing, we felt that smart energy would give us a better niche than the health sciences,” says Stenger.
He believes the term smart energy is fairly “broad,” noting that the school considers smart energy “anything that helps us reduce our energy usage or store energy more efficiently or harvest energy more efficiently.”
The smart energy R&D facility will house the physics and chemistry departments of the Harpur College of Arts and Sciences.
Binghamton initially focused solely on undergraduate education, so its chemistry and physics facilities were designed with that purpose in mind.
“The laboratory space for research was very limited. This will really allow our faculty now to have state-of-the-art research facilities because the faculty we’ve hired in the last 20 years are much more research active, looking for grants,” says Stenger.
The school’s researchers have pursued grants from the Arlington, Va.–based National Science Foundation; the Bethesda, Md.–based National Institutes of Health, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and private industry, he adds.
Stenger believes it’ll be a “big thing” for Binghamton to have its chemistry and physics faculty in a new environment.
“A lot of their research, across the board, is involved in smart energy,” says Stenger.
The research in the new building will focus on energy-efficient technologies; making solar power economically competitive; reducing and using the thermal energy that computers and other electronic devices generate; and developing mechanisms for the storage and transmission of energy through high-capacity batteries, fuel cells, and ultra-capacitors, according to the school’s Aug. 27 news release.
Binghamton University will handle the construction of the smart-energy facility in two phases. Binghamton–based FAHS Construction Group will handle the foundation and steel work in the initial phase. The school has yet to choose a contractor for the remainder of the project construction, according to Stenger.
Crews should finish construction on the smart-energy R&D facility in 2017, the university said.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com