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This presentation informs U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) staff on distributed wind technologies which can provide clean energy for agricultural producers and rural small business owners.
This presentation informs U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) staff on geothermal technologies which can provide clean energy for agricultural producers and rural small business owners.
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) works with hundreds of partners within industry, government, academia, small business, international organizations, and nonprofits to advance clean energy. This fact sheet is a summary of our Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 technology partnership program performance.
This report documents the status of technical objectives and activities for the Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project, titled “Dover CoreGuard Ⓡ Cybersecurity Protections for Critical Energy Infrastructure” (Award No. DE-SC0023743), undertaken by Dover Microsystems, Inc., Wayland, MA. The Principal Investigator for this project was Dr. Stephen Papa, Dover’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The contract PoP (Period of Performance) is scheduled for completion by February 9, 2024.
Off-gas research within the Material Recovery and Waste Form Development (MRWFD) team is dispersed among four national laboratories and multiple universities and small businesses. Ensuring research is conducted consistently and in a manner conducive to direct comparison is a nontrivial task. The team assembled to realign goals and expectations by identifying distinct R&D phases, prioritizing crucial metrics, and outlining standardized tests specifically associated with Kr, Xe, and I capture.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has recently launched an effort to economically expand the North American aluminum supply chain by designing and developing a new family of Al-Mg-Si-Fe-Mn structural die cast aluminum alloys that can be made from up to 100% mixed 5xxx and 6xxx series automotive post-consumer sheet scrap and do not require heat treatment. The goal is to develop an alloy capable of capturing the approaching scrap wave of aluminum sheet intensive vehicles (in the 2030’s) into integrated structural high pressure die castings, rather than down-cycling these high-grade sheet alloys into non-structural castings. ORNL discovered a significant gap in the commercial thermodynamic databases that were unable to predict the trends of a key primary intermetallic phase as a function of composition. Experiments were performed to correct this gap and to create a unique, corrected quaternary database for Al-Mg-Si-Fe. High throughput computational methods, including solidification simulations, were used to identify a composition volume capable of avoiding this embrittling primary intermetallic phase, even at higher Fe + Si contents. Laboratory scale castings validated the thermodynamic and solidification predictions and resulted in lab-cast alloys with little primary intermetallic, and which met or exceeded structural casting properties requirements for yield strength and ductility. An accelerated demonstration of an HPDC automotive part was conducted in collaboration with two U.S. small businesses. Ingots made from 100% recycled 5xxx and 6xxx series scrap (plus Fe) were used to die cast one variant of this new family of Al-Mg-Si-Fe-Mn alloys (with high Si + Fe content) into a mid-sized HPDC structural-type automotive component. The HPDC alloy demonstration part showed good properties (especially ductility) and good castability for a complex component.
The mission of the U.S. Department of Energy's Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) is to advance marine energy technologies through research, testing, and commercialization. This paper explores the barriers and potential solutions for marine energy commercialization by evaluating publicly available literature, feedback from public and private actors, and historical WPTO actions. A key finding is the absence of standardized metrics to measure marine energy commercialization progress and the lack of targeted success goals. This paper aims to define those metrics, informed by public and private goals and the challenges developers experience, and to further evaluate targets offered by public funders and private capital providers. Recommendations to address barriers in marine energy commercialization include enhancing public-private communication, refining commercialization requirements, leveraging technology transfer programs, and exploring novel funding mechanisms like green bonds and contracts for difference. Addressing these challenges through proposed adjustments could facilitate the transition of marine energy technologies from public funding to sustainable private investment, ultimately advancing their commercialization.
Fact sheet outlines performance contracting opportunities—such as energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs), ESPC ENABLE, and utility energy service contracts (UESC)—that may be an option for small- and minority-owned businesses.
The U.S. Research Impact Alliance (USRIA) was created with a vision to leverage successful models that accelerate technology development and commercialization, and support startup businesses based upon federal research investments. Building upon lessons learned and feedback from cohort teams, the USRIA programs have morphed into customized solutions that offer services which provide the most impact to startup businesses. Based upon discussions with small and startup businesses, entrepreneurs, and technology developers, a variety of resources have been developed to support each of these target audiences. USRIA created program differentiators to offer one-on-one engagement and direct communication with cohort teams, highly relevant conversations with targeted introductions, and minimal “class” time (only used when an issue is applicable to all cohort members).
This report summarizes the activities of the Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at San Francisco State University (SFSU) under the Award No. DE-EE0007705 for the period of October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2021. The work performed under the award and related achievements are summarized per task in the statement of the work in the award.
When access to transit solutions is restricted to parts of a community, a division occurs what leads to disadvantaged socioeconomic conditions that only grows over time. This restriction causes difficulties in accessing needed resources such as medical facilities, employment, healthy food, education, healthy food, and more. To solve this restricted access, Labyrinth Smart Mobility and partners are developing a virtual community train that encourages scalability, energy efficiency, and equitability to all regardless of individual circumstances and limitation. The implementation of virtual community trains allows access to resources previously out of reach. The virtual community train enables one operator to drive a lead vehicle. This lead vehicle would then provide direction to a follow vehicle through vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Labyrinth Smart Mobility in conjunction with partners used various methods and resources to prove market feasibility, technical feasibility, economic need and viability, and more as well as design system requirements and architecture emphasis efficiency and safety. In doing so, Labyrinth Smart Mobility and partners will continue these advancements to further develop the virtual community train.
Decarbonization of the building sector is no small feat; buildings account for 40% of primary energy consumption, and fossil-fuel combustion in buildings leads to roughly 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency, electrification and smart technologies are fundamental strategies to reduce consumption and shift away from fossil-fuel use in buildings. This energy transition carries significant societal risks unless the shift is carried out with equity and justice as a top priority. Low-income, vulnerable and communities of color have higher energy burdens compared to affluent populations. Furthermore, systemic racism and historic exclusionary policies have resulted in increased risks (environmental, climatic, economic, and social) to low-income and communities of color, and underserved communities often do not have financial resources for, or access to, advanced building technologies. The U.S. Department of Energy is funding research to characterize and develop solutions to the challenges of equity and justice that complicate the ability of communities to contribute to goals for decarbonization. Our project has a specific focus on small commercial buildings and the businesses that occupy them. Significantly less is known about the burdens and risks these businesses experience or the challenges they face in pursuing decarbonization, or how those are affected by income and race, in comparison to research on energy equity and justice for diverse households. The project team includes the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Arizona State University and Clark Atlanta University. Researchers are conducting semi-structured interviews with small business owners in underserved communities in Phoenix and Atlanta, followed by a survey distributed to the larger community to learn more about the equity and justice issues that communities with different racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds face. Results will help inform an actionable and replicable framework for engaging small commercial building owners/operators to catalyze the reduction of energy burdens and increase equity.
This is the final report for the referenced TCF award which ran from Oct. 2019 through Jan. 2024 in conjunction with the industry partner Swift Solar. The long duration of the program was due to several factors including the pandemic and a technical work stoppage due to changes in the scope. Additionally, Swift’s business focus shifted during the course of the program. As a result of these factors, this program underwent two distinct modifications that dramatically changed the work scope. The following report is organized into three separate sections, each of which addresses a distinct work scope. Those scope changes, what necessitated them, and any new tasks/milestones are given, briefly, at the top of each section. The work performed was research on the hybrid halide perovskites (HHP), both the absorber material itself as well as other material layers that are required in a full device stack. At the start of the period of performance, there were two distinct challenges that we sought to address: (1) a wide band gap absorber (>1.6 eV), and (2) a recombination layer for tandem devices that provided good sequestration of the individual cell absorber materials in their respective device layers. NREL had previously published, and patented, advancements in both of these areas and they were the focus of much of the work throughout the program. The auto manufacturing space is evolving quickly. Sales of various electrified vehicles (xEVs) continue to grow steadily, which has medium to long-term ramifications for the thousands of U.S. manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of workers that contribute to the domestic automotive supply chain. In tandem with this growth in xEV sales, domestic clean energy manufacturing is surging (both for the xEV supply chain and other technologies), with public incentives spurring billions in private sector investment. Moreover, the next 2–3 years will see new and expanded industrial facilities come online to make products like hydrogen electrolyzers, solar panels, batteries, advanced electronics—and will create new supply chain needs and business opportunities as they do. DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) and Argonne National Laboratory developed this report to help automotive manufacturers—alongside various business support partners— understand these trends and their response options, and to make the most of current federal assistance programs for manufacturers. These market changes may create opportunities for small- and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) to expand production, grow profit margins, and diversify their businesses. For instance, SMMs could take advantage of engineering and process design similarities with new end-use industries that might enable greater business growth and stability as markets continue to change.
Our benchmarking method includes bottom-up accounting for all necessary system and projectdevelopment costs incurred when installing residential, commercial, and utility-scale systems, and it models the Q1 2021 costs for such systems, excluding any previous supply agreements or contracts. In general, we attempt to model the typical installation techniques and business operations from an installed-cost perspective, and our benchmarks are national averages. The residential PV-only benchmark and the commercial rooftop PV-only benchmark average costs by inverter type (string inverters, string inverters with direct current [DC] optimizers, and microinverters), weighted by inverter market share. The residential PV-only benchmark is further averaged across small installer and national integrator business models, weighted by market share. All benchmarks include variations—accounting for the differences in size, equipment, and operational use (particularly for storage)—that are currently available in the marketplace. All benchmarks assume nonunionized construction labor; residential and commercial PV systems predominantly use nonunionized labor, and the type of labor required for utility-scale PV systems depends heavily on the development process. All benchmarks assume the use of monofacial monocrystalline silicon PV modules. Benchmarks using cadmium telluride or bifacial modules could result in significantly different results. The data in this annual benchmark report inform the formulation of and track progress toward the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office’s Government Performance and Reporting Act cost targets.
This guide is designed to help trained energy efficiency professionals conduct an energy efficiency audit for commercial and industrial buildings, particularly for micro-, small-, and medium-sized businesses in Mexico. This guide is focused on auditing lighting systems. As such, it will assist its user in determining the optimal lighting for a given space and then identifying the most efficient means of delivering that lighting.
This guide is designed to help trained energy efficiency professionals conduct an energy efficiency audit for commercial and industrial buildings, particularly for micro-, small-, and medium-sized businesses in Mexico. This guide is focused on auditing lighting systems. As such, it will assist its user in determining the optimal lighting for a given space and then identifying the most efficient means of delivering that lighting.
This guide is designed to help trained energy efficiency professionals conduct an energy efficiency audit for commercial and industrial buildings, particularly for micro-, small-, and medium-sized businesses in Mexico. This guide is focused on auditing plug load systems. As such, it will assist its user in documenting the plug loads in the space and then identifying the most efficient means of delivering those plug loads.
This guide is designed to help trained energy efficiency professionals conduct an energy efficiency audit for commercial and industrial buildings, particularly for micro-, small-, and medium-sized businesses in Mexico. This guide is focused on auditing plug load systems. As such, it will assist its user in documenting the plug loads in the space and then identifying the most efficient means of delivering those plug loads.