Posted on Apr 1, 2005

The new state budget contains a $5 million package of good news Thursday for a collaboration among energy technology company SuperPower Inc., Union College and Schenectady County Community College.


The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Hugh T. Farley, R-Schenectady, will fund a plan by the colleges to train students in specialized technology as well as provide sophisticated equipment at SuperPower's 450 Duane Ave. headquarters.


“The $5 million infusion of capital . . . will be the first of many collaborations between the community college and Union,” college President Roger H. Hull told a breakfast gathering of area business people at the college Thursday morning.


Under the three-year grant, SuperPower will receive $2.3 million to procure quality control equipment and other tools for its second-generation high-temperature superconducting wire.


Union College will get $1.7 million for laboratory space and a clean room to test equipment to coordinate with SuperPower's research. Students will also study related technology and pursue intern programs, Union spokesman William Schwarz said.


Schenectady County Community College will get $1 million to upgrade its facilities, obtain testing equipment, and for technology curriculum development.


The three partners must also come up with $1.25 million over three years to match the grant. Most of that will be for staff services, labor and materials, Schwarz said.


“SCCC will be providing training and courses necessary for this very specialized workforce,” said SCCC spokeswoman Heather Meaney.


Depending on when the funding arrives, the community college's Math, Science and Technology Department will work to develop new courses in its electri- cal technology two-year degree program over the spring and summer, Meaney said.


Teaching is tentatively expected to begin next fall, with about 20 students the first year. That is expected to grow to about 35 to 40 students the following year, she said.


Farley, who compared the initiative to Thomas Edison's investment in Schenectady that resulted in the General Electric Co., was enthusiastic about the connections to local colleges.


“The exciting part is that the community college is going to be training these people,” Farley said.


The Senate-only grant is part of the State University capital fund, according to Farley's staff.


“I love New York!,” Super-Power President Philip J. Pellegrino said during the breakfast meeting at Union, which was cosponsored by the Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce.


Saying he is “sick of hearing about high-tech jobs going offshore,” Pellegrino said the collaboration will help industry make jobs “right here and help [students] to get jobs to make products.”


“It's about workforce development and new technology,” he said.


The grant will pay for electron microscopes and related equipment for SuperPower's development of a more efficient electricity transmission wire.


The company is currently involved in a $26 million federally supported demonstration project aimed at improving the electric power grid in the state.


SuperPower plans to install nearly one-quarter mile of a new type of transmission wire on the Niagara Mohawk system in the Albany area.


The wire uses ceramic materials instead of copper to better conduct electricity and help prevent power outages like the one in August 2003 that cut power to 50 million people in several states.


State funding for actual tools and equipment is a first for SuperPower, Pellegrino said.


Funding has historically come from SuperPower's parent company, Latham-based Intermagnetics General Corp. IGC has so far invested $65 million in the high temperature superconducting wire development, officials said.


According to the partners, the collaboration will also help retain 50 jobs established at Super-Power since 2000 and more than triple its workforce by 2010.


SuperPower hopes to commercialize its superconducting wire by next year, Pellegrino said. The wire, looking like a flat tape about 1 /2-inch wide, is designed to drastically decrease the resistance to electricity and allow current to flow more cheaply and efficiently.


The SuperPower grant program follows a $1.825 million grant earlier this month from the U.S. Department of Education to improve technology education at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.


Kelly Lovell, president of the Albany-based Center for Economic Growth, called the push toward collaborations between schools and industry “very important stuff.”


An advocate of the Tech Valley concept of attracting technology industries to eastern New York, Lovell was pleased that the SuperPower grant “is pulling in the energy industry” to widen the scope of the region's attraction to business.