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Article courtesy of NREL, the United States Department of Energy.
This year, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) funded 16 National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) awards through its Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). The $ 5 million funded by the DOE, about one-third of the available TCF budget allocated to the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), is matched with an additional $ 5.1 million in non-federal funds provided by industry partners.
The TCF program aims to increase the number of energy technologies developed at DOE national laboratories that graduate to achieve commercial impact, as well as to improve the departments’ technology transition system with a forward-looking and competitive approach to labindustry partnerships.
TCF Program Supports Collaborative Development of NREL Technologies Towards Market Rollout, said Eric Payne, TCF Capture Manager TCF Fills Perennial Gap in Federal Government Funded RDD&D [research, development, demonstration, and deployment] as funding is available for laboratory-scale development, scale-up, piloting, prototyping, further experiments, etc. needed to bring technologies from the laboratory to the market.
Across the nationwide laboratory system, the DOE announced $ 30 million through the TCF this year to mature a total of 68 projects with promising energy technologies.
A path forward for NREL projects
From aviation fuel to self-healing distribution networks, the NRELs that won 2021 submissions cover several technology areas. Four projects received half a million dollars or more, with Energy Storage Efficient HVAC receiving $ 595,557, “Grid-Edge Intelligent Distribution Automation System for Self-Healing Distribution Grids” receiving $ 550,000 and field testing and validation by HOPP and inexpensive superinsulation for cryogenic and highly isolation applications that receive $ 500,000 each.
Another highlight on a list of outstanding projects comes from NREL molecular biology researcher Min Zhang in collaboration with Novozymes, North Carolina State University, and the University of Kentucky. The project, Robust carbon dioxide for new biological, sustainable and energy-efficient processes of CO2 from exhaust gases, will design and optimize new enzymes, called carbonic anhydrase, to capture carbon dioxide from combustion emissions and convert it to bicarbonate, which can be used for a myriad of applications.
In establishing the TCF program in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress recognized that national laboratories innovate at an early stage of science and technology, but it would remain science fiction without adequate funding and without working with industry to actually implement it. Payne said.
The full list of this year’s winning projects from NREL:
Solid Hydrogen Carrier Fuel Additives (FLASH) for Electric Aviation, $ 250,000 Distribution System Load Modeling Tool Commercialization for Enhanced DER Interconnect Studies, $ 250,000 Economical Super Insulation for Cryogenic and Highly Insulating Applications, $ 500,000 particle thermal energy storage and efficient heat exchanger for carbon-free emissions Heat supply for industry, $ 249,500 robust carbon dioxide for a new biological, sustainable, low-carbon CO2 process Scrubbing from exhaust gases, $ 250,000 bio-based insecticides from biomass thermochemical conversion, $ 100,000 Grid-Edge Intelligent Distribution Automation System for self-healing distribution grids, $ 550,000 field testing and validation from HOPP, $ 500,000 digital twin for offshore wind turbines for component failure prediction, $ 200,000 OpenOA, $ 249,950 dehydrating air conditioning coupled to electrodialysis, $ 250,000 reduction in protein production costs to enable cell-free biocatalysis, $ 400,000 efficient HVAC with energy storage, $ 595.5 57 Hydrogen-based power grid support using ElectrolyzeR with Value stacking (HYPER-V), $ 250,000 distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) based on real-time optimal power flow, $ 299,329 Development of high quality Cd (Se, very large grain) Te) Thin films for CdTe solar modules, $ 150,000 long-term impact of TCF awards
Since 2016, NREL has received over $ 22.6 million in funding for 72 projects from the TCF. Funding provided to NREL researchers through the TCF has continued to create breakthrough technologies.
Our ability to continue receiving a significant amount of funding speaks to the ability of our researchers to work with partners and the quality of their proposals each year, said Anne Miller, director of the NREL Technology Transfer Office (TTO). TCF is a program that supports the mission of the NRELs by enabling the implementation of technologies developed in the laboratory.
In 2019, an NREL project focusing on flexible perovskite solar cells received $ 745,500 from the TCF to further investigate low-cost, high-throughput, high-specific power flexible photovoltaic technologies, which could enable the use of portable photovoltaic devices or wearable. The new perovskite material received a prestigious R&D 100 Award, a recognition given to the 100 most innovative technologies of the previous year.
With $ 750,000 from the TCF in 2018, NREL’s partnership with Autodesk is transforming the way architects and engineers design buildings by ensuring the most widely used tool for this process, Revit, has energy efficiency aspects built into it. By closely associating building information modeling with building energy modeling, Revit allows building professionals to easily assess the impact of their design choices on energy consumption.
Learn more about the TCF program at energy.gov.
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