120 Grants Will Primarily Focus on Clean Energy Research and Development
Washington D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced awards totaling $137 million for small businesses in 30 states. The 120 projects address multiple mission areas across the Department, including clean energy, cybersecurity, high energy physics, and nuclear nonproliferation.
American small business plays a critical role in facilitating the transition from discovery to innovation, helping create a bridge between the scientific laboratory and the commercial marketplace. DOE Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards strive to transform DOE-supported science and technology breakthroughs into viable products and services. The awards also support the development of specialized technologies and instruments that aid in scientific discovery.
Through the SBIR/STTR program across the federal government, small business powers the U.S. economy and generates thousands of jobs, both directly and indirectly.
Funded through the DOE’s SBIR/STTR program, today’s selections are for Phase II research and development. Small businesses that demonstrated technical feasibility for innovations during their Phase I grants competed for funding for prototype or processes development during Phase II. In addition, prior Phase II awardees competed for second or third Phase II awards to continue prototype and process development. The median Phase II award is $1,100,000 for a period of two years. The funding for the selected projects comes from the DOE’s Office of Science.
Projects selected for award include:
Achilles Heel Technologies, Orem, UT. The highly complex and interconnected nature of power systems requires that new analysis techniques be employed to understand their vulnerabilities, especially from cyber-attacks. This project uses recent advances from mathematical physics and robust control theory to create tools for understanding the impact of possible disruptions to these systems.
Dissigno International, Inc., Larkspur, CA. Water resource management and access to clean energy are key challenges for the 21st century. This project will create a platform to utilize water bodies for the development of low-cost solar energy while providing water body operators with a nearly zero cost option to add technologies to improve water quality.
Intergrid, LLC, Temple, NH. The U.S. distributed wind market is severely limited by the lack of availability of electronic inverters designed and certified for wind applications. This project develops inverter hardware and advanced software controllers that can meet certification requirements and lower costs.
Steam Instruments, Madison, WI. Forensic analysis of nuclear particles in the environment is the foundation of compliance testing of international treaties on nuclear armament but it is neither sufficiently rapid nor accurate for today’s needs. This project will address this need with a new laser-based mass spectrometry approach that offers large increases in speed and certainty of result.
AMPEERS, LLC, Houston, TX. A new type of superconductor cable technology that can enable ultra- high field magnets is being developed. This new superconductor cable would lead to high energy accelerators, compact fusion reactors, as well several commercial products that serve medicine, electronics, energy, environment, and security markets.
For more information about DOE’s SBIR and STTR programs, visit the Programs Office website.
More information about the projects announced today is available at the following link: https://science.osti.gov/sbir/awards/.