Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI)

FESI, by design, can go beyond the Department abilities and act nimbly and flexibly at a regional and national scale. For example, FESI could: 

• Tackle systemic and widely distributed federal, state, and local deployment challenges such as those faced by local energy offices as they navigate the deployment of energy technologies.
• Invest and incubate early-stage start-up companies commercializing DOE-funded and other critical energy technologies.
• Build public-private partnerships to promote energy dominance in sectors that span several federal agencies as well as state and local governments, along with an array of private-sector interests, such as agriculture, construction, or marine transport.
• Support education and training of new researchers in energy technology fields as well as enhance public education and awareness regarding the role and value of DOE-sponsored RDD&D.
• Provide direct assistance to underrepresented groups and regions to facilitate participation in funding opportunities, bringing in new stakeholders and ideas into the DOE family.
• Create a forum for the national laboratories and their associated foundations to network and share knowledge and respond as a system to cross-cutting national challenges.  

This list represents some of the ideas that have surfaced so far. FESI presents an amazing opportunity for the DOE to enhance its engagement with the broader energy ecosystem via enabling successful commercialization of technologies, promoting energy abundance, strengthening national security, and more.