Kodak has teamed up with the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST) to open a $5.9 million batteries and energy storage development facility in New York.
The move follows Kodak’s foray into battery technology in a bid to reinvent itself after the former global photographic film company’s bankruptcy in 2012.
The Kodak Cell Assembly Center at Eastman Business Park will make the lithium-ion battery development process “more efficient… and completes an energy storage ecosystem” at the site, Kodak said.
The centre includes two multi-user battery cell assembly lines to provide pilot manufacturing services to battery and energy storage companies.
New York’s Empire State Development agency is supporting the partnership with a $1.2m grant.
Kodak said it would work with NY-BEST— a consortium including manufacturers, academic institutions, utilities, start-ups and engineering firms— and the Rochester Institute of Technology, “to provide the tools and resources necessary for companies to develop, test and commercialise new batteries, ultracapacitors and energy storage products”.
“The facility allows design and development from small to large scales, eliminating cost-heavy hurdles that slow and sometimes shut down promising technology,” Kodak said.
The president of Eastman Business Park and Corporate Real Estate, Dolores Kruchten, said the centre “will improve the success rate of energy storage companies… and make it possible to do coating, assembly and testing all in one location”.
Earlier this year, New York State governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled a ‘Clean Energy Standard’ blueprint, requiring 50% of the state’s power needs to be derived from renewables by the year 2030.
