Maryland Launches Clean Energy Center
Governor Martin O’Malley and Montgomery County Isiah Leggett recently announced the launch of the region’s first Clean Energy Center, to be located at the Camille Kendall Academic Center at the University of Maryland, The Universities at Shady Grove campus in Montgomery County.
The Maryland Clean Energy Center (MCEC) will support the state’s Smart, Green and Growing efforts through assistance to newly developed technologies with pilot projects, the collection, analysis, and dissemination of industry data, and by providing outreach and technical support to further the clean energy industry in Maryland.
"Today’s announcement marks yet another large step toward our goal of creating 100,000 ‘green collar’ jobs by 2015. This center will leverage greater opportunities for our workers and a cleaner, greener Maryland for our families," said O’Malley.
Program priorities for the center range from technology commercialization and business incubation to workforce development and training, with expected outcomes of increased economic and environmental health.
The city of Annapolis has partnered with Montgomery County for the benefit of the MCEC in offering access and free use of the 500-acre Annapolis National Clean Energy Park. In addition, the MCEC board is anticipating collaborations with both the University of Maryland Baltimore County and Frederick County to further expand the reach and impact of the center across Maryland.
The Universities at Shady Grove is not only one university, but nine of the state’s top public universities housed in one central locale. The location for the Center was constructed to be both energy-efficient and environmentally sensitive. It is the largest green higher education building in the state and is a gold-certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) building.
In the past two years, the O’Malley-Brown Administration has set some of the most ambitious goals in America for reducing energy consumption 15 percent by 2015, partly by raising the state’s renewable portfolio standard and leading the charge for America’s first ever cap-and-trade auction of greenhouse gases.