Celebrating Another Electrifying Year of Domestic Innovation in Clean Energy Manufacturing

With the exponential growth of the global clean energy market expected to reach a minimum of $23 trillion by 2030, America’s ongoing historic deployment of clean energy technologies depends on our ability to rapidly scale next-generation manufacturing processes and technologies to meet these production demands. 

AMMTO remains focused on this effort by advancing work that is fundamental to improving our nation’s industrial competitiveness and the resiliency of our domestic supply chains for clean energy technologies. Let’s take batteries and energy storage, for example. Batteries are needed for electric vehicles and energy storage can effectively substitute almost every aspect of a power system. Therefore, long duration energy storage is seen by many as “the key to the renewable energy revolution.”  To remain globally competitive, the U.S. must accelerate scale up of manufacturing capabilities for emerging technologies, including flow batteries and sodium ion batteries, so that we can ‘leapfrog’ over current technologies. 

To kick off 2024, AMMTO announced a round of funding for battery manufacturing innovations that will enhance performance, scalability, and manufacturability, by focusing on manufacturing next generation technologies like sodium-ion and flow batteries. The projects selected for this funding opportunity will be announced in the near future and each will make pivotal steps to advance clean-energy applications, drive innovation, and strengthen national competitiveness in the clean energy economy.  

Critical materials are the building blocks of clean energy technology and AMMTO has been leading the Department-wide effort to address supply risks for these materials. After the release of last year’s 2023 Critical Materials Assessment (CMA) which identified 18 critical materials that are both important for energy technologies and subject to supply risk, DOE established the Critical Materials Collaborative (CMC) to integrate critical materials work being done across government. Further, AMMTO announced a Critical Materials Accelerator funding opportunity to de-risk innovation and mature technologies in partnership with industry. Funding topics ranging from critical material lean magnets to critical material recovery from electronic scrap address priority technologies and supply chain gaps identified by the CMA and the CMC.  

This year also marked the ten-year anniversary of DOE’s Critical Materials Innovation Hub (CMI), one of the very first ‘innovation ecosystems’ supported by AMMTO. CMI convenes stakeholders across industry, national labs, and academia to execute early-stage applied research that diversifies supply, develops substitutes, and supports the re-use and recycling of critical materials. CMI-led projects have already led to breakthrough solutions for domestic supply chains of rare earth metals and other materials critical for the success of clean energy technologies, with CMI’s work boasting over 50 U.S. patents and 20 licensed technologies, along with 200+ invention disclosures.  

In that spirit of materials re-use and recycling, AMMTO announced two circularity-focused prizes in the past year, both of which were created to fund emerging technologies and innovations from small and medium-sized manufacturers. Specific to critical materials, AMMTO’s E-SCRAP Prize was launched in March to fund research and development (R&D) projects that increase the production and use of critical materials recovered from electronic scrap (‘e-scrap’.) E-scrap—which includes mobile phones, home appliances, medical or office equipment, and anything else powered by electricity—represents the fastest growing waste stream globally, with e-scrap generation expected to double by 2030.   

AMMTO’s Re-X Before Recycling Prize, which kicked off in late 2023, is funding R&D projects that extend the lifetimes of products or parts via reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, or repurposing (“Re-X”) before recycling. The innovations developed through this prize will reduce life cycle energy and emissions, strengthen circular supply chains for emerging clean energy technologies, and decrease the demand for virgin materials. In June of this year, 20 projects were awarded funding through the first phase of this prize.  

Just last week, our office released a draft strategic framework to increase circularity for secure and sustainable materials and products, with a request for public feedback. The document lays out a framework for prioritization of R&D and technology advancement to target highest impact opportunities for manufacturing competitiveness, supply chain security, decarbonization, and community benefits. The deadline to submit responses is December 16, 2024. 

Earlier this year, AMMTO released a $33 million funding opportunity for Smart Manufacturing projects(which is accepting full applications through November 18, 2024.) The funding opportunity is seeking a range of applications of AI/Machine Learning (ML) in smart manufacturing, such as for improved sorting and characterization in recycling, AI/ML for smart machines and control, and AI/ML for materials design and discovery. 

AMMTO also funded 13 projects through DOE's High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) program that provides U.S. manufacturers access to world-class computational resources of DOE’s national laboratories to advance performance, efficiency, and vitality of technologies across the U.S. manufacturing sector. Topics of these projects ranged from optimal design and manufacturing of high strength steels to optimization of liquid piston compression for long-duration energy storage. Just last week, DOE issued a Notice of Intent to release another round of HPC4Mfg funding. Stay tuned for more on that in the weeks to come! 

The current boom in generative AI also means a drastic increase in demand for the electricity required to power the data centers that store this technology. Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency projected that data centers’ total electricity consumption worldwide would more than double from 2022 to 2026, with AI playing a major role in that increase. To address this societal challenge, AMMTO launched the Energy Efficiency Scaling for Two Decades (EES2) Initiative in 2022, which seeks to increase the energy efficiency of semiconductor applications by a factor of 1,000 over the next twenty years. As part of this initiative, 69 organizations across industry, government, and academia (including Microsoft and Google) have pledged to work together to reduce energy consumption from rapidly expanding semiconductor applications, such as industrial-scale data centers. Additionally, the AMMTO-led EES2 Research and Development Draft Roadmap mobilized stakeholders across the semiconductor industry to chart a technical course for the R&D needed to meet these goals. This draft roadmap is open for comment through December 16, 2024.   

Since AMMTO’s inception, the office has focused on partnering with private and public stakeholders across the manufacturing landscape while empowering the technological progress of small- and medium-sized manufacturers as well as early-stage clean tech entrepreneurs.  

This year, the AMMTO-led Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP) kicked off its tenth year by selecting a record 33 new fellows for its newest cohort. These fellows will spend the next two years developing their emerging technologies and entrepreneurial acumen while embedded across four DOE national laboratories. They join a network of over 200 current and former LEEP fellows whose businesses have created over 2,300 new energy manufacturing jobs and received over $3 billion in federal follow-on funding. This cohort is comprised of early-stage innovators focused on applications ranging from lithium extraction to zinc batteries to polymer recycling. The application window for next year’s LEEP cohort is almost closed. Find out more about applying to be a LEEP Fellow. 

AMMTO also continues to support entrepreneurs through DOE’s Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs and recently awarded funding to seven small businesses in areas ranging from eco-friendly lithium extraction and manufacturing processes to new techniques for manufacturing energy efficient quantum computing devices.  

In the year to come, AMMTO will continue to be a convening force for stakeholders across the supply chain, from manufacturing trade organizations to small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses, to entrepreneurs, researchers, and state and local governments, to create and grow innovation ecosystems. The impact of this model has been proven through the impactful work done through AMMTO’s five Manufacturing USA institutes, each focused on high-priority technology areas: advanced composites (IACMI), power electronics (PowerAmerica Institute), smart manufacturing (CESMII), circular economy (REMADE Institute), and cybersecurity manufacturing (CyManII).  

This past year, AMMTO also made strides to assemble and activate new regional innovation ecosystems to address key challenges in the development and adoption of emerging materials and manufacturing technologies through the Clean Energy Innovation Prize. AMMTO dedicated funding to ten manufacturing innovation ecosystem projects across the United States with topics ranging from the revitalizion of Kentucky’s metals manufacturing industry through clean energy conversion to hands-on power electronics training for students from underserved communities in Arlington, Texas. These ten projects will now continue in the prize’s final phase where they will compete for further funding to support existing community partnerships.