The Energy Department announced on May 23 a
total of $11 million in innovative research and technology grants of up
to $150,000 awarded to nearly 67 small businesses in 22 states. The
grants were awarded under the department's Small Business Innovation
Research program, part of the Obama Administration’s broader support for
job-creating small businesses and startup companies nationwide. These
businesses are located in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California,
Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. The businesses will
work on 75 research projects including designing better wind turbines
and fuel cell technology. They will then be eligible to compete for a
second phase of the program with awards up to $1 million over two years.
For example, the Seachange Group in Maine will
work on a process that determines the best conditions for thermochemical
conversion of biomass into drop-in transportation fuels, which has
potential for under-developed rural communities. And Creare Incorporated
of New Hampshire will focus on improving battery pack thermal
management for electric vehicles. See the DOE press release and the description of all the projects .
The Energy Department on May 22 announced the
first round of winners for the "Apps for Energy" competition, selected
by a panel of judges. App developers submitted more than 50 innovative
mobile and Web applications that will help utility consumers save money
by making the most of their "Green Button" electricity usage data.
Eligible apps included those for mobile phones, computers, tablets,
software programs, and more. Popular Choice awards will also be
announced after the conclusion of a public voting period on May 31.
Competing developers created apps that are
designed to make the best use of the data provided through the Green
Button initiative, which recently announced that nine major utilities
and electricity suppliers will provide more than 31 million consumers
access to data about their own energy use. The winners are sharing prize
money provided jointly by the Energy Department and three
private-sector cosponsors of the competition.
The grand prize winner for the best overall app
was Leafully, a Seattle-based team, which created an app that helps
utility customers visualize their Green Button data as a variety of
units, such as the amount of trees needed to offset an individual’s
energy usage. Leafully encourages users to set energy savings goals and
to share their progress on Facebook. The Best Student App Grand Prize
was from "wotz," a group of University of California, Irvine, students
who submitted an app that lets users explore and play with Green Button
data. It provides several games based on the "shape" of data, and offers
creative comparisons to illustrate usage. See the Energy Department press release.
The Energy Department announced on May 22 phase I
awards totaling nearly $3.2 million that will encourage utilities,
local governments, and communities to create programs that empower
consumers to better manage their electricity use through improved access
to their own electricity consumption data. These projects will
complement the Apps for Energy prizes by demonstrating how convenient
tools and services can help consumers make more informed decisions about
their energy consumption and helping to stimulate the market for the
development of additional innovative energy applications. Awards were in
seven states: Arizona, California, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota,
Pennsylvania, and Texas. For phase II, the department will select one
recipient to apply the tools and software to an entire service
territory, region, or community
For example, the City of Dubuque, Iowa, will
match a $500,000 DOE award to implement a Smarter Energy Conservation
portal that gives residents access to their electricity consumption
data. It uses advanced analytics, dynamic visualization, and
activity-based engagement to help consumers better understand their
consumption. See the DOE press release.
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A student from the Mississippi State University team works on their car, which was honored in the EcoCAR 2012 Competition.
Credit: Mississippi State University
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Mississippi State University was named "Year One" overall winner on May 24 at the EcoCAR 2012 Competition in Los Angeles. EcoCAR 2: Plugging into the Future
is a three-year contest sponsored by the Energy Department, General
Motors (GM), and 25 other government and industry leaders. The challenge
gives students from 15 collegiate teams the opportunity to gain
real-world, eco-friendly automotive engineering experience while
striving to improve the energy efficiency on a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu.
For Year One, with $100,000 in prize money up
for grabs, the contest emphasized engineering design though modeling and
simulation to select and virtually test the teams' plug-in hybrid
electric vehicle architecture. Teams also started developing their
hybrid control strategy using hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation
tools and designing major vehicle subsystems, including the hybrid
powertrain, energy storage, and high-voltage electrical systems.
Throughout the events in Los Angeles, EcoCAR 2 teams put their designs
to the test, giving presentations to industry and government
professionals based on their mechanical, electrical, control and HIL
strategies; project initiation approval; outreach and business plans;
and trade show display.
Mississippi State, which has placed first three
times in its nine years of competitions, was followed by Ohio State and
the University of Waterloo. The 15 teams also received the keys to the
GM-donated 2013 Chevrolet Malibus they will spend the next two years
rebuilding, testing, and refining. See the DOE press release and the EcoCAR2 website.
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By Ramamoorthy Ramesh, director SunShot Initiative & Solar Energy Technologies Program
About two years ago, my good friend Arun
Majumdar, director of ARPA-E, coined the term "SunShot" in one of our
meetings. We decided then that all of the solar program efforts going
forward would focus on the common goal of making solar electricity
cost-competitive by the end of the decade. Such a goal was incredibly
ambitious, so it was fitting that the initiative’s name would be
inspired by President Kennedy’s "moon shot" speech that launched NASA's
effort to put a man on the moon.
We have been doing everything in our power to
reduce energy costs for consumers and to ensure that American innovators
and companies can lead the global transition to a clean energy economy.
As the price of solar panels has decreased, the solar energy industry
in the United States has exploded. Solar installations doubled from 2009
to 2010, and the domestic market grew to $6 billion in 2010.
We now know that SunShot goals are within our
reach. By tapping into the best and brightest minds in science,
industry, and academia, we are already making progress. The SunShot
Initiative is funding more than 250 projects that explore every possible
way to drive down the cost of solar, from developing an efficient solar
cell that’s as thin as a human hair to creating a GIS-based tool that
can perform site assessments from space. But there is much work left to
do.
The SunShot Grand Challenge: Summit and
Technology Forum next month will give us the opportunity to highlight
the progress of the past two years and reassess the challenges that must
be overcome in order to reach the 2020 goal. We are inviting everyone
who is contributing to this effort to join us at what promises to be an
exciting event June 13–14 in Denver, Colorado. For the rest of the
story, read the complete Energy Blog.
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