New York is holding a competition this fall for clean energy technology start-ups to promote such projects in the Southern Tier.
Southern Tier includes those counties that lie west of the Catskill Mountains along the northern border of Pennsylvania.
The office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has informed that applicants willing to relocate to Southern Tier will be allowed entry to the $10-million competition.
The competition is part of the 76West program for promoting green-energy companies in the Southern Tier. The administration set aside $20 million fund for the program on April 1 as part of New York’s $142-billion budget.
Initially the state had proposed to use the entire fund — $20 million — exclusively for the competition. But now, $10 million has been set aside for purposes such as providing support services, including training programs and incubators, to the existing green energy market in Southern Tier.
“This competition is designed to jumpstart the clean energy economy in the Southern Tier, bringing with it new jobs, new economic opportunity and increased sustainability to local communities,” Cuomo has told the media.
One eligibility condition laid out for the competition is that the competitor should move to one of 10 Southern Tier counties and the southern part of central New York, including Broome, Chemung and Tompkins.
Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chenango, Delaware, Schuyler, Steuben and Tioga are the other counties that fall in the competition’s purview.
Earlier, Western New York had conducted 43North business idea competition. The prize set for 43North was $5 million.
The winners of that competition were announced last October and it had garnered thousands of applications from companies that were willing to relocate to Buffalo.
76West would be open to early-stage clean energy technology businesses that would build on strengths and assets of Southern Tier. Individual prizes under the competition will range from $100,000 to $1 million.
Ajith Kumar S
editor@greentechlead.com