- Further interdisciplinary research into building energy efficiency technologies
- Support the commercialization of new energy efficiency technologies to generate new jobs and economic activity
- Develop new approaches to training and career development in the energy efficiency field
- Craft new public policy approaches to reducing energy use
“This investment confirms that Philadelphia is emerging as a national hub for the research and development that are the heart of the green economy,” said Mayor Nutter. “Just as investments in our medical research and teaching institutions at the turn of the last century created the city’s largest industry of today, this project has the potential to position the City for truly lasting and broad based job creation. I’d especially like to thank Penn State, PIDC and the other GPIC partners for the extraordinary work on this project.”
The City of Philadelphia, through PIDC, will serve as an implementing partner for GPIC, carrying out a range of functions including the renovation of the historic Building 661 to house the GPIC’s Hub and will put The Navy Yard’s self-contained power grid to work as a test bed for new technologies. As the City’s economic development arm, PIDC will also work with Ben Franklin Technology Partners and others to commercialize GPIC developed technologies and turn them into well paid jobs, profitable companies, and a new economic base for the City.
This award represents the latest in a series of major investments that support Mayor Nutter’s Greenworks Plan to make Philadelphia the nation’s most sustainable city by 2015. In the spring, the City and its partners in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties won $25 million to support innovation in energy efficiency financing and in the fall PECO won over $200 million to blanket the region in a “smart grid.”
It is also the latest in a series of events that highlight the growing prominence of The Navy Yard’s Clean Energy Campus and business park. Last year, the Department of Energy awarded Penn State and other Navy Yard partners multiple grants to develop new solar training and energy efficiency programs at The Navy Yard. And Exelon-Conergy will break ground this fall on what will be the second largest urban solar array in the nation, also to be located at The Navy Yard.
via cityofphiladelphia.wordpress.com