National Grid hopes grants for SUNY building yield rewards

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="628"] Exterior of the Zero Energy Nano, ZEN, building at the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at SUNY Polytechnic Institute Monday, March 23, 2015, in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Times Union)[/caption]

Albany -National Grid announced last month that it is giving two grants totaling $1 million to SUNY Polytechnic Institute for its new 356,000-square-foot ZEN building.

The money will go a long way to help launch a new renewable energy "test bed" at SUNY Poly — including a 2-megawatt solar farm that is planned for the school's Fuller Road campus.

But the investment will also help give National Grid invaluable experience in learning how to integrate renewable energy into the electrical grid — which will be critical under a new regulatory framework being adopted by state utility regulators.

"Strategic partnerships like the one between National Grid and SUNY Poly CNSE are critical to creating new, sustainable energy solutions for the future and developing an energy system that underpins economic prosperity in the 21st century," Kenneth Daly, president of National Grid New York, said last month at the annual meeting of iClean, a clean-tech incubator at SUNY Poly that was funded by NYSERDA, the state's energy development agency.

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By Larry Rulison Published 8:10 pm , Monday, March 23, 2015