Latest news with #MassachusettsTechnologyCollaborative
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
Billerica company unveils a new way to make batteries
The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday to celebrate the completion of its 'Customer Success Center,' essentially a dry room and an electrode manufacturing production line that allows clients and potential customers to do test runs, or hire AMB to make the electrodes for them. Shi was joined at the event by US Representative Lori Trahan, state interim economic development secretary Ashley Stolba, and Lily Fitzgerald, of the quasi-public Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, among others. Roughly half the cost of the $5 million center was funded through a state grant provided through MassTech. Electrodes are key components in batteries; most batteries rely on a liquid mixture to create a slurry applied to the electrodes that helps them store and release energy. But AMB's technology uses a coating of dry powder instead, and as a result is more efficient and requires less manufacturing space to make the batteries. (Plus, AMB says it's better for the environment, by avoiding the use of harmful solvents and reducing the energy demand.) Manufacturing batteries, Shi said, involves a careful balance of cost, performance, and sustainability. Usually, battery makers have to compromise on one aspect, but Shi said AMB's process excels in all three areas and helps enable battery manufacturers to expand here in the US. Advertisement 'All the battery makers realize this should be the future of manufacturing,' Shi said. Shi said a 'Battery Day' held by Elon Musk in 2020, in which the Tesla chief executive highlighted the importance of coming up with more efficient ways of building batteries through a dry-coating process, helped draw investors' attention. AMB raised $25 million in 2022, and another $44 million in the following two years based on dry-electrode technology developed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor Yan Wang and Heng Pan, now at Texas A&M University. AMB's investors include TDK Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and Anzu Partners. Advertisement The company has doubled its workforce in the past year, adding 25 new jobs, with plans to add 15 more in 2025. The potential for new jobs is one reason MassTech committed state funding to the project, along with the role the facility can play in helping anchor the area's growing ecosystem of battery companies. 'We have to get better at making batteries,' said MassTech's Fitzgerald. 'We think there's a really good value proposition here to keep electrode manufacturing in Massachusetts [with] such a strong potential for job creation.' This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston's business scene. Jon Chesto can be reached at
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Residential retrofitting program turns on high-speed internet for Bay Meadow Apts. in Springfield
SPRINGFIELD — Luz Ramos, a 29-year resident of the Bay Meadow Apartments affordable housing complex in Springfield, helped Monday to turn on new, high-speed internet capable of delivering up to 1 gigabit-a-second upload and download speeds. 'This is going to open a lot of doors,' Ramos said after a news conference Monday at the complex. She recently received her high school equivalency diploma. And she plans to go on and take college courses. Ramos also describes how her grandchildren, and her neighbors and their children will now be able to do homework, and access information and job opportunities easily without a trip to the library for better internet. 'The doors are open, and I'm going to walk right through them,' she said. The 148-unit Bay Meadow Apartments is the first housing development in Massachusetts to get connected through the Residential Retrofit Program of Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's Massachusetts Broadband Institute. Funded with $82 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, the program already has committed $38.9 million to deliver internet to more than 27,300 housing units across the state, said Michael Baldino, director and general counsel for the institute. In Western Massachusetts alone, the institute has committed $14 million for 8,000 units, Baldino said. The units are in Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee, Easthampton, Northampton and Westfield. Housing operators interested in applying to the next round of the retrofit program may submit an expression of interest form by July 31. For more information, applicants should visit The funds must be spent by the end of 2026. The program pays for upgrades to wiring and connectivity infrastructure that in some cases is phone cabling that's 50 years old, Baldino said. Through internet provider Aervivo Inc. and property owner Preservation of Affordable Housing, Bay Meadow Apartment residents get free service of 100 megabits per second. For $19 a month, residents can upgrade to the faster 1 gigabit-a-second service. 'Which is more than enough for any family to do anything they need to do, whether it is doing Teams meetings for work, accessing education, checking with family, accessing government resources. This is state of the art,' said Baldino. Without the upgrades, it's a different story. 'The wiring prevents them from getting high-quality access,' Baldino said. 'The speeds might be lower. It may cut in and out.' The internet has gone from an amenity to a must-have utility, said Preservation of Affordable Housing President and CEO Aaron Gornstein. 'Having high speed internet access is really key to economic opportunity for our residents,' he said. 'It is really crucial for participation in our economy.' At the event, U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal called internet access a 'civil right' for the 21st century, given that it's required to do almost any everyday task. It's a right that the Residential Retrofit program will continue to guarantee, despite the political changes since the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill was passed in 2021. He said the money is still secure. 'The American Rescue (Plan's) roots have taken hold for sure. I think there is no threat,' Neal said. Chicopee budget up 6% on personnel, police costs; mayor proposes $3M to defray taxes ICE takes two into custody in Amherst in crackdown on 'sanctuary' communities With cannabis industry struggling, Western Mass. sellers and growers seek relief from high court Read the original article on MassLive.
