Opportunity Overview
NYSERDA is accepting Round 2 applications for the Empire Building Challenge: Hospitals Program, which funds scalable decarbonization and energy-efficiency projects in existing New York hospital buildings. NYSERDA announced more than $20 million for the Hospitals program and designed the competition to demonstrate approaches that can be replicated across the state’s hospital sector.
Funding and Deadline
Eligible hospitals may request up to $5,000,000, capped at 75% of total project cost. Round 2 applications are due September 15, 2026 at 3:00 PM ET. Implementation must be completed within three years of the award date.
NYSERDA also states that selected proposers may be eligible for up to $50,000 for operations-and-maintenance training on new equipment and building systems installed as part of the funded project.
Who Can Apply
The proposer must be a New York State hospital or an authorized representative of a hospital, and funding must be used for an existing hospital building. NYSERDA defines an eligible hospital as a licensed institution primarily focused on acute, short-term medical and surgical care, including diagnosis, treatment and inpatient housing. Nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitation centers, urgent care facilities, laboratories, research facilities, ambulatory-care facilities and medical offices do not meet this program’s hospital-building definition.
NYSERDA has stated that projects at hospitals located in disadvantaged communities will receive priority consideration.
Feasibility Study Requirement
Applicants must complete a feasibility study or equivalent analysis before proposal submission. Hospitals that have not completed the required analysis may pursue NYSERDA’s FlexTech Program, but should not assume that starting a study near the application deadline will satisfy Round 2 timing.
Eligible Project Types
Core eligible activities include heating and cooling electrification, electrification-readiness upgrades, high-performance building-envelope improvements and comprehensive energy-efficiency measures that reduce energy use, building load and greenhouse-gas emissions. Examples include heat pumps, variable refrigerant flow systems, thermal energy networks, conversion of steam distribution to hot water and other low-carbon building-system upgrades.
Some activities are eligible only when paired with a qualifying core project. These include energy-efficient medical-equipment upgrades or operating improvements that generate energy savings, upgrades to existing electrical infrastructure, energy storage and renewable-energy technologies. Lighting-only projects, fossil-fuel system replacements, clean-transportation projects, EV charging, new construction and expansion projects are ineligible.
Atlas Analysis
Atlas Opportunity Score: 90/100. This is a high-value hospital infrastructure opportunity with a large per-hospital ceiling, a 75% program-share cap, and a clear pathway for mature, implementation-ready decarbonization projects. The strongest proposals will pair quantified energy and carbon reductions with replicability, operational resilience, implementation readiness and a credible 25% or greater non-program cost share. NYSERDA’s published evaluation criteria make project impact 50% of scoring and explicitly reward both Disadvantaged Community location and Safety-Net hospital status, alongside energy and carbon reduction, innovation and replicability, additional hospital or community benefits, and resilience.
N9+ Direct Vendor Fit: 0/100. This is an energy and building-decarbonization program, not a clinical telehealth grant. Although energy-efficient medical-equipment upgrades may qualify as contingent activities when paired with a core eligible measure, N9+ is not itself an energy-efficiency measure and should not be positioned for funding under this program.
Application Readiness
Hospitals should confirm eligibility, validate the required feasibility study, finalize the construction and installation scope, quantify expected energy and emissions reductions, document the full project budget and non-program share, distinguish core from contingent measures, address replicability and disadvantaged-community benefits where applicable, and submit the complete proposal before September 15 at 3:00 PM ET.
Official source: NYSERDA — Empire Building Challenge: Hospitals Program.