ALBANY — The state has started the $2.5 million New York Power Authority (NYPA)-Israel “Smart Energy Challenge.” It’s a competition to attract Israeli companies with expertise in energy efficiency and clean-energy generation to submit proposals to collaborate with NYPA — New York’s public utility — on new clean-energy technologies. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is seeking Israeli […]
ALBANY — The state has started the $2.5 million New York Power Authority (NYPA)-Israel “Smart Energy Challenge.”
It’s a competition to attract Israeli companies with expertise in energy efficiency and clean-energy generation to submit proposals to collaborate with NYPA — New York’s public utility — on new clean-energy technologies.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is seeking Israeli companies that will advance power-grid reliability, storage, sustainability and affordability, “all of which benefit ratepayers, utilities and the environment,” his office announced on March 6.
The competition builds on Cuomo’s 2019 trip to Israel when he announced several economic partnerships. It also supports the state’s effort combat climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and growing the clean-energy economy.
“Israeli companies are developing new technologies with the potential to take us into the next generation of resilient, renewable and affordable energy systems, and we look forward to building the new partnerships that will get us there, together,” Cuomo said in a statement.
The competition will focus on research areas centered around meeting digital utility challenges such as electric-vehicle charging; distributed energy products; grid modernization; energy storage; microgrids; cybersecurity; buildings/campus energy management; data analytics; artificial intelligence; virtual reality; and use of drones/autonomous robots in power systems.
Proposals will be evaluated based on their potential to save money, improve safety, or operations; reduce maintenance, improve efficiency, or save manpower or time. The proposals need to be “viable, replicable and able to be commercialized,” Cuomo’s office said.
This new competition is an addition to an ongoing series of relationships with Israeli businesses to advance technology pilots in support of NYPA’s efforts to become a “fully digital utility.”
For example, mPrest, an Israeli provider of monitoring and control systems, developed a “first-of-its-kind” transmission monitoring system. After proof of concept and success with this system at NYPA’s Niagara power plant and other facilities, the systems are now being replicated at other power systems across the globe. In another association, Israeli developer Brenmiller Energy is coordinating with NYPA to test the use of thermal-energy storage with combined heat and power to increase system energy efficiency on a SUNY campus.
The New York-Israel Innovation Challenge is modeled after the NYPA Innovation Challenge that Cuomo announced earlier this year.
To launch the NYPA-Israel “Smart Energy Challenge,” NYPA is working with the Israel Smart Energy Association (ISEA). NYPA and ISEA will promote the competition among Israeli firms that support next-generation electric-vehicle technologies, electric grid reliability, energy storage and demand flexibility technologies.
The challenge will identify several companies that will be given the opportunity to work with NYPA to scale up their technology in pilot demonstration projects to meet the specific needs of power-utilities operations.