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DOE Announces $16 Million for 54 Projects to Commercialize Energy Tech

June 28, 2016
This first Department-wide round of funding through the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) will support 54 projects at 12 national labs involving 52 private-sector partners.

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced nearly $16 million in funding to help businesses move promising energy technologies from DOE’s National Laboratories to the marketplace. This first Department-wide round of funding through the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) will support 54 projects at 12 national labs involving 52 private-sector partners.

The TCF is administered by DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), which works to expand the commercial impact of DOE’s portfolio of research, development, demonstration and deployment activities. In February of 2016, OTT announced the first solicitation to the DOE National Laboratories for TCF funding proposals. It received 104 applications from across the laboratory system, for projects in two topic areas:

  • Topic Area 1: Projects for which additional technology maturation is needed to attract a private partner; and
  • Topic Area 2: Cooperative development projects between a lab and industry partner(s), designed to bolster the commercial application of a lab developed technology.

All projects selected for the TCF will receive an equal amount of non-federal funds to match the federal investment.

“Deploying new clean energy technologies is an essential part of our nation’s effort to lead in the 21st century economy and in the fight against climate change,” said Lynn Orr, DOE’s Under Secretary for Science and Energy. “The funds announced today will help to accelerate the commercialization of cutting-edge energy technologies developed in our national labs, making them more widely available to American consumers and businesses.”

“The great work at the national labs and across DOE’s programs make DOE one of the largest supporters of technology transfer within the federal government” said Jetta Wong, Director of the Office of Technology Transitions. “These TCF selections will further strengthen DOE’s important mission to transition technologies to the market.”

DOE’s national labs have supported the critical research and development that lead to many technologies in the marketplace today, including the batteries powering electric vehicles, the foundation of Internet servers, and the optical digital recording technology behind DVDs. These first department-wide TCF selections will expand the Department’s efforts to catalyze the commercial impact of today’s portfolio of research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities to increase return-on-investment from federally-funded research, and to give more Americans access to cutting-edge energy technologies.

A list of TCF selections, as well as the Topic Area 2 projects and their private sector partners can be found at http://energy.gov/technologytransitions/office-technology-transitions.  

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