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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced Tuesday an innovative partnership between the New York University Tandon School of Engineering Urban Future Lab and the New York Power Authority that will recruit and support startup businesses pursuing electric vehicle and energy storage technologies. The partnership will help advance Cuomo's Green New Deal, a nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda that will aggressively put New York State on a path to economy-wide carbon neutrality.

"As a national leader in the clean energy economy, New York State is working to stimulate growth that will generate jobs and economic opportunities, while achieving a healthier environment," said Cuomo. "This new innovative partnership will recruit and support a new wave of entrepreneurs who have the knowledge and expertise needed to develop new technologies with utilities and help us build a cleaner, greener New York for generations to come."

The joint program, called the NYPA Innovation Challenge, will support advanced pilot programs demonstrating new technology and business models in New York State. As the power grid inevitably transforms and begins to work with more distributed energy resources (DERs) and grid edge solutions, NYPA will be seeking additional public and private partners with expertise in innovation, energy efficiency and clean energy generation.

The Challenge will help startups successfully implement projects that benefit both utilities and ratepayers in New York State and put them on a path to more widely scaling their businesses and operations. To be eligible, entrepreneurs must address technology and business needs in the following two categories:

Electric vehicles and their related infrastructure.
Long duration (6+ hour) energy storage technologies.

These areas of focus will help advance the unprecedented ramp-up of renewable energy in the Governor's Green New Deal that includes deploying 3,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030 and increasing the number of zero-emission vehicles in New York to 800,000 by 2025, representing nearly one out of every ten vehicles on the road.

The Innovation Challenge supports NYPA's $250 million EVolveNY initiative that encourages electric vehicle adoption across the state with hundreds of charges to be installed along highways and in New York's larger cities to help New York reach its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 based on 1990 levels. The Challenge also supports New York's nation-leading 3,000 MW statewide energy storage goal by 2030 which will help build the foundation for this burgeoning clean energy sector by adding up to 30,000 jobs statewide.

"Investments in clean energy technologies are advancing our aggressive clean energy goals and resulting in economic growth across the state," Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, who made today's announcement, said. "This partnership between NYU Tandon's Urban Future Lab and the New York Power Authority will provide new opportunities for start-up companies to collaborate on innovative ideas and generate solutions to ensure the growth and efficiency of the industry and support a cleaner and greener environment for future generations."

By creating a technology innovation strategy, this program will help NYPA identify a handful of promising startup companies and prepare them for working with large utilities. Start-up and utility partnerships can lead to significant advances in grid reliability, storage, sustainability, and affordability, all of which benefit ratepayers, utilities, and the environment.

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 solutions need to be viable, replicable and able to be commercialized.

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