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Energy Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship: Insights From the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Technology Transitions 2024 Energy Technology University Prize Faculty Track

The Energy Technology University Prize (EnergyTech UP) was established in 2022 with the goal of challenging student teams to develop impactful business plans for energy technologies of their choosing. EnergyTech UP is part of the The American Made Challenges program portfolio, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. EnergyTech UP is specifically funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and is administrated by staff at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Since its inception, the annual prize has attracted applications from approximately 1,948 students across nearly every U.S. state and territory, awarding over $1 million in funds to student teams. In 2024, the prize expanded to include a Faculty Track, which invited faculty members from degree-granting institutions across the U.S. to design entrepreneurship-based curricula or educational activities. This new track aims to foster innovation in energy entrepreneurship education by leveraging the expertise of faculty to create robust, practical, and inclusive learning experiences. This report summarizes the themes, strategies and impacts identified in proposals from EnergyTech UP's inaugural Faculty Track. Our primary data for organizing insights are the Faculty Track applications themselves. This evaluation of 2024 EnergyTech UP Faculty Track applications aims to support future EnergyTech UP Faculty Track applicants as well as others who are interested in promoting, developing, and/or implementing educational activities that focus on energy commercialization and entrepreneurship at their institutions. By presenting insights from 2024 entries to the Faculty Track, we hope to contribute to a growing inventory of open-source curriculum development resources and provide materials to facilitate the growth of similar programs at a variety of collegiate institutions.

adoption readiness level↗

Technology Transition a Model for Infusion and Commercialization

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has as part of its charter the mission of transferring technologies developed for the space program into the private sector for the purpose of affording back to the American people the economical and improved quality of life benefits associated with the technologies developed. In recent years considerable effort has been made to use this program for not only transitioning technologies out of the NASA Mission Directorate Programs, but also to transfer technologies into the Mission Directorate Programs and leverage the impact of government and private sector innovation. The objective of this paper is to outline an approach and the creation of a model that brings together industry, government, and commercialization strategies. When these elements are integrated, the probability of successful technology development, technology infusion into the Mission Programs, and commercialization into the private sector is increased. This model primarily addresses technology readiness levels between TRL 3 and TRL 6. This is typically a gap area known as the valley of death. This gap area is too low for commercial entities to invest heavily and not developed enough for major programs to actively pursue. This model has shown promise for increasing the probably of TRL advancement to an acceptable level for NASA programs and/or commercial entities to afford large investments toward either commercialization or infusion.

McMillan, Vernotto C.↗

Small Money Agile Research and Technology Transitions (SMARTT)

The Energy and Environment Directorate’s (EED’s) applied energy mission aligns with the larger DOE mission to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. This Small Money Agile Research & Technology Transitions (SMARTT) LDRD project provided EED with the flexibility to leverage PNNL staff and capabilities to rapidly explore new scientific concepts and deliver initial proof-of-concept studies for innovative new technologies that aligned with the goals of DOE’s Applied Energy Offices. Concepts that were successful were further developed through sponsor funding and private-sector partnership, or through follow-on LDRD investment.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

L(sub 1) Adaptive Flight Control System: Flight Evaluation and Technology Transition

Certification of adaptive control technologies for both manned and unmanned aircraft represent a major challenge for current Verification and Validation techniques. A (missing) key step towards flight certification of adaptive flight control systems is the definition and development of analysis tools and methods to support Verification and Validation for nonlinear systems, similar to the procedures currently used for linear systems. In this paper, we describe and demonstrate the advantages of L(sub l) adaptive control architectures for closing some of the gaps in certification of adaptive flight control systems, which may facilitate the transition of adaptive control into military and commercial aerospace applications. As illustrative examples, we present the results of a piloted simulation evaluation on the NASA AirSTAR flight test vehicle, and results of an extensive flight test program conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School to demonstrate the advantages of L(sub l) adaptive control as a verifiable robust adaptive flight control system.

Xargay, Enric↗

Agile Research and Technology Transitions (ARTT)

The Energy and Environment Directorate (EED) supports an extensive portfolio of strategic Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) research through its SEED, strategic, Agile and Initiative programs. Of paramount importance is the relevance of these investments to the long-term objectives of our various Department of Energy (DOE) programmatic sponsors. This LDRD project seeks to maximize impact to our sponsors by providing an agile funding approach to develop/enhance DOE relevant technologies in an accelerated and responsive manner to emerging and adjacent technical challenges. Staff will propose small development activities to be carried out under the overall Agile Research and Technology Transitions project.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Critical Role of Water for Energy Transitions Technologies: A Literature Review

This report summarizes the water inputs associated with four technologies playing diverse roles in energy transitions: hydrogen, solar photovoltaics (PV), wind, and batteries. Information in this report is drawn from multiple sources, including peer-reviewed literature, industry and international agency reports, EcoInvent life cycle inventory database, and subject matter expert (SME) consultations. Where possible, insights that characterized water requirements for specific stages of the technology development (e.g., operations, manufacturing, and mining) were prioritized over broader cradle-to-gate assessment values. Furthermore, both direct and indirect water requirements (i.e., associated with associated energy inputs) were considered in this literature review.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Propulsion system-flight control integration-flight evaluation and technology transition

Integration of propulsion and flight control systems and their optimization offering significant performance improvement are assessed. In particular, research programs conducted by NASA on flight control systems and propulsion system-flight control interactions on the YF-12 and F-15 aircraft are addressed; these programs have demonstrated increased thrust, reduced fuel consumption, increased engine life, and improved aircraft performance. Focus is placed on altitude control, speed-Mach control, integrated controller design, as well as flight control systems and digital electronic engine control. A highly integrated digital electronic control program is analyzed and compared with a performance seeking control program. It is shown that the flight evaluation and demonstration of these technologies have been a key part in the transition of the concepts to production and operational use on a timely basis.

Burcham, Frank W., Jr.↗

Timing Is everything: quantifying regulatory and market readiness levels for technology transition policy analysis

People save for retirement throughout their career because it is virtually impossible to save all you’ll need in retirement the year before you retire. Similarly, without installing incremental amounts of clean fossil, renewable or transformative energy technologies throughout the coming decades, a radical and immediate change will be near impossible the year before a policy goal is set to be in place. This notion of steady installation growth over acute installations of technology to meet policy goals is the core topic of discussion for this research. This research operationalizes this notion by developing the theoretical underpinnings of regulatory and market acceptance delays by building upon the common Technology Readiness Level (TRL) framework and offers two new additions to the research community. The new and novel Regulatory Readiness Level (RRL) and Market Readiness Level (MRL) frameworks were developed. These components, collectively called the Technology, Regulatory and Market (TRM) readiness level framework allow one to build new constraints into existing Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to address research questions such as, ‘To meet our desired technical and policy goals, what are the factors that affect the rate we must install technology to achieve these goals in the coming decades?’

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Propulsion system-flight control integration and optimization: Flight evaluation and technology transition

Integration of propulsion and flight control systems and their optimization offers significant performance improvements. Research programs were conducted which have developed new propulsion and flight control integration concepts, implemented designs on high-performance airplanes, demonstrated these designs in flight, and measured the performance improvements. These programs, first on the YF-12 airplane, and later on the F-15, demonstrated increased thrust, reduced fuel consumption, increased engine life, and improved airplane performance; with improvements in the 5 to 10 percent range achieved with integration and with no changes to hardware. The design, software and hardware developments, and testing requirements were shown to be practical.

Burcham, Frank W., Jr.↗

Sandia and Ditch Witch Technology Commercialization Fund Integral Motor and Percussive Hammer

This report captures the results of development and testing of a integral downhole motor and percussive hammer used for drilling in near-surface hard rock formations. The work was funded through the DOE Office of Technology Transitions Technology Commercialization Fund. It was a collaboration between Sandia National Labs and The Charles Machine Works (aka Ditch Witch). In the collaboration, Sandia developed a pneumatic motor derived from an indexing tool used in other drilling applications, and Ditch Witch developed the bearing pack tied to the output shaft of the motor as well as the angled beacon housing used for directional control.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

A new Transition Radiation detector based on GEM technology

Transition Radiation Detectors (TRD) have the potential feature of separating particles by their gamma factor. Classical TRDs are based on Multi-Wire Proportional Chambers (MWPC) or straw tubes, using a Xenon based gas mixture to efficiently absorb transition radiation photons. These detectors operate well in experiments with relatively low particle multiplicity. The performance of MWPC-TRD in experiments with luminosity of order 10 34 cm 2 s –1 and above, is significantly deteriorated due to the high particle multiplicity and channel occupancy. Replacing MWPC or straw tubes with a high granularity Micro Pattern Gas Detectors (MPGD) like Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs), could improve the performance of the TRD. In addition, GEM technology allows one to combine a tracker with TRD identification (GEM-TRD/T). This report presents a new TRD development based on GEM technology for the future Electron Ion Collider (EIC). The first beam test was performed at Jefferson Lab (Hall-D) using 3–6 GeV electrons. A GEM-TRD/T module has been exposed to electrons with and without a fiber radiator. First results of test beam measurements and comparison with Geant4 Monte Carlo are introduced here.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗