DOE Announces $18.4M through TCF to Bring Clean Energy Technologies to Market

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(Credit: DOE)

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $18.4 million through the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) for seven national laboratory projects with the goal of getting more clean energy technologies to the marketplace. The selected national laboratories will address barriers, gaps, and root causes of commercialization challenges for emerging clean energy technologies. Accelerating commercialization pathways supports President Biden’s goal of deploying clean energy to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 while strengthening the American economy through increased domestic manufacturing.

New clean energy technologies are critical to meeting the nation’s climate goals, but they face unique barriers to commercialization. Selected lab projects will use a holistic approach to identifying and addressing common barriers that clean energy technology companies face when working to successfully commercialize a product. 

TCF, established by Congress through the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and reauthorized by the Energy Act of 2020, provides new flexibilities to promote promising energy technologies. On February 15, 2022, nine DOE program offices subsequently issued the “Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Commercialization,” a first-of-its-kind call for national laboratories to develop infrastructure for clean energy technology commercialization.

  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will develop lab technologies and cultivate a pool of diverse talents and connections between industry and national labs in collaboration with four other labs and funds cost-shared by partners in California, Massachusetts, and New York.
  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory will stand up a prize to provide flexible funding and targeted commercialization assistance to teams at different levels of technical and commercial readiness levels in collaboration with five other labs and funds cost-shared by partners in California.
  • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will develop a Visual Intellectual Property Search (VIPS) for both patents and software, made available on the DOE’s Lab Partnering Service webpage, in collaboration with eight other labs and funds cost-shared by partners in California.
  • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will standardize technology transfer workflows to accelerate the transition of lab-developed technologies to the market in collaboration with five other labs and funds cost-shared by partners in Arizona and California.
  • Sandia National Laboratories will create a strong regional clean energy commercialization ecosystem in New Mexico for manufacturing in collaboration with six other labs and funds cost-shared by partners in Arizona, California, Minnesota, and New Mexico.
  • Sandia National Laboratories will also engage the diverse startup community at a new, larger scale in order to increase the number of startups around DOE lab technologies in collaboration with thirteen other labs and funds cost-shared by partners in Alaska, California, District of Columbia, New Mexico, and Virginia.
  • Sandia National Laboratories will also establish a collaborative approach for moving the semiconductor sector and next generation microelectronics from the lab to the market in collaboration with four other labs and funds cost-shared by partners in Arizona, California, Iowa, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, and North Carolina.

This year, the DOE has also awarded $57.9 million to 30 projects — housed within industry, universities and the National labs — that will help decarbonize the American industrial sector and advance the science of clean energy manufacturing, and announced $38 million to begin decarbonizing four of DOE’s 17 National Laboratories in support of President Biden’s goal to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050. 

Environment + Energy Leader