Buffalo, N.Y (WBEN) - The U.S. Senate Majority Leader is pushing to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to accelerate the growth of a Buffalo battery storage system manufacturer, Viridi Parente, and bring more jobs to East Buffalo.
"We have an amazing chance to breathe new life into Buffalo's manufacturing legacy and bring work back from overseas to supercharge our economy with good paying jobs, and building America's future," said Senator Schumer.
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This $202 million investment, through the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program, would continue the work of Viridi Parente in producing fail-safe battery systems that are powering the transition to renewable green energy not just here locally, but all over the world.
"It would allow Viridi to install 10 lines of automated manufacturing, skyrocketing their output of these failsafe energy storage systems from about 3,000 units to 100,000 units annually. Mr. Williams tells me there is a backlog of orders already. So you got to now expand the facility to fill those orders. That means they'll hire people quicker and they'll fill more orders more quickly as well, this product is in demand," Sen. Schumer said.
"This isn't just about saving green lives. This is about efficiency," said Viridi Parente CEO Jon Williams. "Electric technology is infinitely more efficient than fossil. It's more expensive today, because we haven't scaled. But with the Senator's leadership in the Senate and Congressman Higgins' leadership in Congress, they're putting forth legislation so scaling happens faster, we can wait 100 years to do it, or we can get it done in the next decade."
Viridi reports that they are reviewing over 500 applications now of workers in Buffalo. The plan is to hire hundreds of additional workers in addition to their current employee base.
"The goal is to grow this to at least 500 people. Jon Williams has an intentional, specific plan to make sure that that growth benefits people that are living in East Buffalo, paying them family sustaining living wage jobs, so this is a great day," added Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.
This funding push also comes with a promise from Schumer to continue to protect investment programs made possible through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the bipartisan CHIPS and Science ACT that some Republicans in Congress are looking to repeal.
"We're going to fight that tooth and nail, Congressman Higgins and I, they passed a bill that would repeal those. We're not going to allow that to happen. As long as I'm Majority Leader, we're not allowing that repeal to happen. I assure you of that, because it's so important for what we're doing here. The Inflation Reduction Act is already benefiting companies like Viridi, they're seeing their products in higher and higher demand. Why repeal it when this is the way of the future?"