Published: San Antonio Business Journal
By: Sanford Nowlin
Date: June 24, 2011

GreenStar Executive Vice President Rod Gray (left) and SunEdison President Carlos Domenech explain their new investments in San Antonio at a CPS Energy news conference.

Beyond promising hundreds of jobs, new investment by clean-energy firms in San Antonio will give a boost to the city’s research and educational institutions ¬— necessary components as it strives to become a hub for the new energy economy.

Mayor Julian Castro announced Monday, June 20, that five companies doing business with CPS Energy, the nation’s largest city-owned power utility, will invest ¬in — and in some cases relocate to — San Antonio. Each pledged concrete support to the University of Texas at San Antonio and other educational institutions with dollars, R&D work or technical expertise.

The news comes as the Alamo City works to make clean energy a driver for economic development and as UTSA strives for coveted Tier 1 status as a major research university.

“Getting this university to Tier 1 status and research excellence is key to giving San Antonio an economic edge, particularly in bioscience and renewable energy,” Castro says. “This is about creating a brainpower community that can generate jobs for the 21st Century.”

As part of their newly announced investments in the Alamo City, the clean-energy companies made the following educational commitments:

• Solar power provider SunEdison will donate $300,000 to energy-based R&D at UTSA.

• GreenStar, which has a contract to produce efficient LED streetlights, committed $10 for every light it manufactures to support educational institutions including UTSA.

• Philips Lumileds, which makes LEDs for GreenStar lights, will establish a LED-research center at UTSA.

• Texas Instruments, which makes semiconductors for the lights, pledged to establish a “long-term relationship” with UTSA and provide development tools for its engineering labs.

• Summit Texas Clean Energy, which will supply “clean” coal power to CPS, will establish a 20-person national advisory board ¬— including representatives from leading energy labs ¬— headquartered at UTSA.

• Consert Inc., a producer of energy monitoring software, will partner with UTSA and other universities on smart grid R&D.

The companies’ contributions feed into an earlier commitment by CPS to provide $50 million in funding for UTSA’s Sustainable Energy Research Institute over the next 10 years. The institute’s head, nationally recognized energy expert Les Shephard, spent nearly three decades at Sandia National Laboratories.

Energy, sustainability and the environment are three of the five multidisciplinary focuses UTSA has identified as it works to bring its academics and research up to Tier 1 status. The others are health, and human/social development.

Cluster effect

Private partnerships with research universities are key to the Silicon Valley’s emergence as a computer technology center and Boston’s as a hub for biotech, Castro says. Boom towns such as Austin and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., also have built thriving industry on a foundation of university research.

“To foster the kind of development we’re talking about, you need a triangle of innovation,” Castro says. “That has to include education, industry and government.”

Critics of San Antonio’s past economic development have pointed to its lack of a major research university as a stumbling block as it sought to add more skilled, high-tech jobs. Bolstering UTSA’s energy research could help change that, says Ed McCallum, senior principal of McCallum Sweeny Consulting, a leading site-selection firm based in Greenville, S.C.

“When companies are looking to relocate, they’re telling communities, ‘Look, we need applied research,’” he says. “If you can’t help them collaborate, you’re at a disadvantage.”

CPS is expected to spend tens of millions of dollars on new sources of energy as it works toward a goal of increasing its renewable resources to 20 percent by 2020. And that, according to CEO Doyle Beneby, gives it serious leverage to urge partners and contractors to invest in R&D here.

“We’re putting out large dollars, and we’re seeing partners that are interested in growing with the city,” Beneby says. “We’re telling them that to do that, you’ve got to do more than just generate electrons.”

Indeed, CPS plans to announce the selection of another solar provider in the next 30 days, and Beneby says many of the more than 100 proposals it’s now reviewing include commitments to foster local R&D and educational partnerships.

McCallum, whose firm represented wind-energy companies Nordex and Zarges during major site-selections, says many cities are chasing clean energy, but none has yet to emerge as a clear front-runner.

“You don’t want to compete with cities who are already doing something well,” he says. “You want to be the best at a certain thing or go after a niche other people haven’t recognized. That’s what’s smart, and that’s what San Antonio is doing here.”