Metering.com 26 APRIL 2017
The US Department of Energy (DoE) announced the participants in the first round of its Small Business Vouchers (SBV) pilot programme.
Under the SBV programme, the energy department provides national laboratories with funding to collaborate with small businesses in researching and developing innovative energy technologies.
The pilot aims to help small businesses to overcome challenges in developing and marketing their energy technologies at a global scale.
In a press statement, the DoE said eight of its national laboratories including the Idaho, Sandia, Oak Ridge and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories will collaborate with 38 small businesses in the first round of the 2017 SBV programme.
The selected programmes will focus on research, development and testing of building energy efficiency technologies, energy management solutions for municipal utilities and low-pressure hydrogen energy storage systems.
Five of the selected projects will focus on advancing battery energy storage and data analytic technologies for solar energy systems.
Eight projects with research on advancing the Electric Vehicle charging and smart water sectors.
The announced round of the SBV is the pilot’s third round since the launch of the programme.
In the first two rounds of the SBV, the DoE provided funding for 12 national laboratories to partner with 76 small businesses.
Rick Perry, secretary of Energy, said: “Small businesses are the engine of our economy, and those working on advanced energy technologies play an important role in ensuring our nation’s energy security and independence.”
Energy department and DER integration
In early February, the US DoE also awarded the Sandia National Laboratories a grant to develop a solution to facilitate utilities’ integration of renewable energy resources.
Sandia National Laboratories will use the $2.5 million grant over the next three years to research and develop an advanced distribution management system (ADMS) to help energy companies to simplify and secure the integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) with their grid networks.
The laboratories will develop open-standard ADMS algorithms capable of providing utility firms with an advanced platform to access the operation of their grid networks in real-time.The ADMS algorithms will be integrated with Sandia’s commercial energy management software to allow utilities to improve the management and operation of DER-integrated grid networks.
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