Empire State Development announced that Eastman Kodak Company, in partnership with New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium Inc. will install two multi-user battery cell assembly lines at their Eastman Business Park site in Rochester. The site will serve battery and capacitor development and production companies. The new lines will complement existing roll-to-roll coating capability and expertise at Kodak; a battery assembly prototype lab at Rochester Institute of Technology; and the BEST Test and Commercialization Center, a battery cell commercialization and testing center in the same building at Eastman Business Park. This combination of capabilities expands the energy ecosystem and creates a world-class tool-set for the development and production of new battery and capacitor technologies. The battery cell assembly facility, which will be operated by Kodak in partnership with NY-BEST, will utilize equipment supplied by Kodak. This includes a dry room and specialized manufacturing equipment, such as cutting, winding, stacking, welding, filling, formation and packaging machines to make batteries, ultra-capacitors and other energy storage devices. Empire State Development has offered incentives for the project through an Upstate Revitalization Initiative capital grant valued at $1.2 million. The project will create nine direct jobs by 2019 while expanding pilot manufacturing capabilities at Eastman Business Park, which will enable commercial market entry for new products, helping to attract more new business to the 1,200-acre campus in Rochester. The new battery pilot manufacturing facility is expected to be open by July 2017.