We’d say Edwards Vacuum and Viridi Parente are equally exciting projects, for different but similarly compelling reasons.
The former General Motors and American Axle & Manufacturing plant on East Delavan Avenue may soon be home to more than 600 workers focused on clean energy and battery storage to power heavy equipment and buildings.
"When you put energy storage where the energy is being used, you really transform the way we rely and depend on energy, and you make it completely resilient," chairman and CEO Jon Williams said. "That's what we've really been building."
When Steve Finch was leading the General Motors Town of Tonawanda engine plant for 11 years, he focused on making internal combustion engines for the automaker. Now, the retired plant manager is thinking electric.
"What this shows is that green jobs are good jobs," Schumer said. "They're the manufacturing of the future."
A clean energy startup company on Buffalo’s East Side is generating its own energy among venture capitalists, drawing in Paychex Corp. founder and former Buffalo Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano as its newest investor and board member. Grand Oaks Capital, an investment firm founded by Golisano, has invested $20 million in Viridi Parente, a renewable energy company that makes