The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced more than $35 million in funding for 42 projects aimed at advancing emerging energy technologies. The funding, distributed through the DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), is intended to help move innovations related to grid security, artificial intelligence, nuclear energy, and advanced manufacturing from national laboratories and other DOE sites into the marketplace.
These projects will also benefit from over $21 million in cost-sharing contributions from private and public partners, bringing total investment to more than $57.5 million.
The TCF program is managed by the Office of Technology Commercialization’s Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness (CLIMR) Lab Call. It focuses on supporting partnerships between public and private sectors to maximize taxpayer investments and promote American innovation.
“The Energy Department’s National Labs play an important role in ensuring the United States leads the world in innovation,” said Secretary Wright. “These projects have the potential to accelerate technological breakthroughs that will define the future of science and help secure America’s energy future.”
This year’s selected projects span 19 DOE national labs, plants, and sites. Among them:
– Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will launch America’s Cradle to Commerce (AC2C), building on its previous Cradle to Commerce (C2C) program that supported lab-to-market innovation. In 18 months, C2C helped startups raise over $15 million and launch five commercial pilots.
– Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will enhance its Visual Intellectual Property Search (VIPS) tool with a new VIPS 2.0 project, aiming to improve access to information about available National Lab innovations for licensing or open-source use.
– Argonne National Laboratory will work on commercializing the OpenMC Monte Carlo particle transport code as part of the Exascale Computing Project, which supports nuclear safety analysis and aims to speed up design and licensing processes for U.S. nuclear reactor projects.
A complete list of this year’s selections can be found on the DOE website.
