Catalyst Award Winner: Innovation & Technology Development

Dr. William Acker

Executive Director, NY-BEST

The Catalyst Award for Innovation & Technology Development goes to Dr. William Acker.

Nominated for advancing the clean energy technologies of tomorrow, Dr. Acker’s dedication and his vision for innovation are unparalleled.

When NY-BEST was founded 15 years ago by NYSERDA, energy storage was still an R&D initiative. Since that time, and under Dr. Acker’s leadership, NY-BEST has grown its membership to more than 180 companies and New York State is at the leading edge of energy storage.

Innovation at Its BEST

As the first Executive Director, Dr. Acker has led the NY-BEST in the creation of the state-of-the-art BEST Test and Commercialization Center and new battery prototyping capabilities, and has performed pioneering work in advancing markets, policy, technology and product development.

Motivated By Opportunity

Being at the forefront of the energy storage industry and the push to move energy storage onto the grid comes with some inherent challenges. But to Dr. Acker, the biggest challenge means the biggest opportunity. While creating a holistically efficient system is a tall mountain to climb, he’s motivated by the incredible opportunity to create a much more efficient energy system going forward.

“I think the biggest challenges right now are the federal headwinds that we've faced recently for deployment in the industry, and also some of the concerns with community siting and permitting of renewable resources and energy storage. We need to advance those areas and make sure we continue to grow the deployment that we're starting to see in the state,” Dr. Acker said.

New York at the Forefront

Dr. Acker is excited about the future of innovation in New York—the forward momentum of startups creating new technologies, the well-established companies deploying those technologies, and organizations offering support to push those technologies forward.  “NYSERDA has a vision and alignment that has been consistent and strong. It’s really been a guiding light for everybody in the State to drive forward, in both the innovation and the goals of clean energy.”

A Clean Energy Solution and an Economic Driver

“While energy storage is a technology that's critical to the clean electricity grid, it’s also a true economic driver for the State,” said Dr. Acker.

“Energy storage is one of the fastest growing industries on the planet and it's creating hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs, both in the deployment and manufacturing areas. So, we're working hard to make sure that in addition to the kind of clean energy benefits, we're also getting the economic benefits of this new sector growing here in New York State.”