NY BEST, Empire State Development unveil battery commercialisation facility

LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email

The new facility is comprised of a battery assembly lab and a battery cell commercialisation centre in Eastman Business Park. Source: NY-BEST
New York’s chief economic development agency Empire State Development (ESD) is launching a battery cell assembly facility in Eastman Business Park (EBP), Rochester, which will serve battery and capacitor companies, in collaboration with the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST).

NY-BEST will install the two multi-user assembly lines (a battery assembly lab and a battery cell commercialisation centre) in partnership with the Eastman Kodak Company.

The project was funded by ESD leveraging incentives through a US$1.2 million Upstate Revitalisation Initiative capital grant and is expected to be open by July 2017.

The new lines will complement Kodak’s existing roll-to-roll (R2R) coating capabilities and will be a significant boost to New York’s energy storage efforts by creating a facility for the production of new battery technologies.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

Not ready to commit yet?
  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

“We are proud to reinforce our commitment to NY-BEST and the energy storage innovation hub it is creating with Kodak at Eastman Business Park,” said Howard Zemsky, president and CEO of Empire State Development, in a statement. “These facilities provide needed resources to companies, researchers, and entrepreneurs who are working to advance the battery industry. Under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, New York State is establishing itself as a world leader when it comes to this burgeoning industry.”

Once completed, the facility will create nine direct jobs by 2019, which will enable commercial entry for new products and in turn will attract new business to the Rochester campus.

NY-BEST Executive Director William Acker said: “NY-BEST is grateful to Governor Cuomo, Empire State Development and the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council for their support of the energy storage industry and our efforts to establish a world-class energy storage product development and manufacturing hub here in New York State. Together with our partners at Kodak, RIT and DNV GL, the facilities we have created here in Rochester, along with the State’s rich network of research, manufacturing and intellectual assets, have combined to put New York State on the global map as a great place for energy storage companies to locate and grow their businesses.”

The new production facility will help the state meet its 100MWh energy storage target by 2020.

11 November 2025
San Diego, USA
The 2024 Summit included innovative new features including a ‘Crash Course in Battery Asset Management’, Ask-Me-Anything formats and debate-style sessions. You can expect to meet and network with all the key industry players again in 2025 from major US asset owners, operators, RTOs and ISOs, optimizers, software and analytics providers, technical consultancies, O&M technology providers and more.

Read Next

Premium
September 12, 2025
The Town of Ulster in New York has received a request from local officials of the neighbouring town of Hurley to temporarily suspend the permitting process of a 250MW/1,000MWh BESS project under development by independent power producer (IPP) Terra-Gen. 
September 11, 2025
Hithium has announced its lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) for supporting data centres, while Storion Energy has secured its first vanadium electrolyte customer.
September 11, 2025
A flurry of large-scale BESS project news in the US from four major developer-operators, coinciding with the country’s largest clean energy trade show RE+.
Premium
September 11, 2025
US sodium-ion battery firm Natron Energy has ceased trading, putting an end to its two domestic gigafactories. The news points to the challenges for battery chemistries hoping to compete with LFP, analysts told Energy-Storage.news.
September 10, 2025
Tech giant Google has announced a partnership with utility SRP to help accelerate the commercialisation of non-lithium long-duration energy storage (LDES) technology.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter