The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities has recently been working on wrapping up a multi-year grant received from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

David Leathers, BPU general manager, said during a recent BPU meeting that members of the BPU team have been working on finishing what was needed for the Multi-Year NYSERDA Accelerate the Southern Tier Climate Technology Grant. Ellen Ditonto, BPU business development coordinator, shared some highlights of the grant with the BPU board during the meeting.

“We were able to extend it from a three-year to a four- year grant and last year really started working with our manufacturers to give them mini grants, $19,000 each,” Ditonto said. “I’m able to tell you six manufacturers in our BPU territory took advantage of that, and that was because of either research and development work or actual production changes to see if they could get into the Clean Energy Sector.”

Ditonto said two of the grants were able to be provided to manufacturers in the Western New York Southern Tier Region that was also covered in the grant, one in Allegheny, New York and one in Ellicottville.

“They’re all very important in terms of connections to the BPU and to our Western and Southern Tier manufacturing,” Ditonto said. “It was a very successful year for us.”