New York launches $1 million competition to draw Israeli cleantech startups
State partners with Israel Smart Energy Association for 2nd year of challenge for tech, such as electric vehicle charging, energy storage, data analytics
Ricky Ben-David is a Times of Israel editor and reporter
The state of New York has launched a new competition aimed at drawing Israeli startups focused on cleantech to address “the needs of New York’s utility operations and advance the state’s clean energy transformation.”
In an announcement last week, that was also available in Chinese, Italian, Arabic, Korean, and Yiddish, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the New York Power Authority (NYPA) would be partnering with the Israel Smart Energy Association (ISEA) to launch the challenge, which comes with a $1 million award.
The ISEA is an organization that brings together local and global smart energy players in New York and Israel, with stakeholders to launch initiatives and build partnerships.
The NYPA is the largest state public power organization in the US, with 16 generating facilities. The organization says that more than 80 percent of the electricity it produces is clean renewable hydropower.
The Israel Smart Energy Challenge seeks innovative Israel-based companies “to support the next generation of the clean energy evolution,” according to the announcement. The startups that nab top spots will be able to work directly with the NYPA to pilot their solutions in order “to meet the specific needs of power utilities operations.”
The challenge, now in its second year, will focus on next-generation technologies such as electric vehicle charging, energy storage, energy management, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.
“New York and Israel have a long history of collaboration and a common interest in developing new clean energy solutions that will address climate change and mutually benefit our power systems,” said Hochul in a statement. “The Smart Energy Challenge will give small startup firms the opportunity to work with a large utility and allow New York State to maintain its lead as an innovator as it moves aggressively toward a 100% zero-emissions electric grid by 2040.
New York state signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2019, a plan that put the state on a path toward its mandated goal of a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040, including 70% renewable energy generation by 2030, and economy-wide carbon neutrality. The state said its over $40 billion investments into clean energy projects such as clean transportation initiatives and reducing building emissions support about 150,000 jobs.
NYPA Interim President and CEO Justin E. Driscoll said, “New York’s utility operations will gain from this collaboration and the technologies we test and potentially implement may change best practices throughout the US and Israel and demonstrate new, creative ways of providing a supply of affordable, clean and reliable electricity to New Yorkers.”
In December, Hochul and Israel Counsel General in New York Asaf Zamir announced that PrismaPhotonics, a Tel Aviv-based provider of smart monitoring solutions for physical infrastructure, won the 2021 challenge for its detection system that flags real-time transmission line issues.
Zamir said in the statement that Israel was “internationally recognized as a high-tech center powered by cutting-edge innovation and the ideas of Israeli entrepreneurs and companies with can-do attitudes.”
“The 2022 New York / Israel Challenge will provide resources to a promising start-up that is poised to turn a great idea into a practical solution that brings benefits to the energy field in New York and on a broader scale,” added Zamir.
Israel Smart Energy Association CEO Elad Shaviv, said that “as a leading player in the smart energy space, Israel will use its growing talents and knowledge to further the global transition to clean power.
The competition will show “how a leading power utility can drive innovation, while opening the door for companies to showcase and test their technologies to jointly develop potential solutions that will benefit the energy industry around the world,” said Shaviv.
Israel is home to close to 400 startups and companies in the cleantech sector, according to the Start-Up Nation Central finder database.
