DOE Announces an Additional $47 Million in Funding for Commercial Scaling of Transformational Energy Technology Projects

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced an additional $47 million in funding for seven projects as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) program. These selections bring total SCALEUP program funding to over $70 million, building on $24 million in previously announced SCALEUP “Fast Track” selections. These new SCALEUP teams are receiving funding to support the scaling of high-risk and potentially disruptive new electric vehicle battery, data center efficiency, grid modernization, emissions mitigation, and storage technologies.

“ARPA-E’s SCALEUP program builds on the research and development mission of the agency to help take transformational energy technologies out of the lab and into the market,” said ARPA-E Director Lane Genatowski. “These selections directly address the challenge that so many early-stage energy concepts face in scaling and will help awardees to bridge the dreaded “Valley of Death” and continue on the path of commercialization.”

SCALEUP is a first-of-its-kind initiative, supporting the scaling of high-risk and potentially disruptive new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications. The goal of the program is to translate the performance achieved at the lab- and bench-scale by previously funded ARPA-E technologies to commercial viability, supporting promising energy technologies that require scaling-up or pre-pilot projects to enable a path to market and ultimately lead to realized commercial impact. SCALEUP awardees are unique in that they will focus on further developing existing technologies, for which the proof-of-concept R&D challenges have been addressed, that can establish real-world impact through scaling.

ARPA-E developed the SCALEUP program in response to a need identified to help successful ARPA-E funded technologies to demonstrate a path to market and be well-positioned for investment from the private sector. These newly selected SCALEUP teams will add to previously selected “Fast Track” teams announced in September 2020, who received early funding due to disruptions in the investor and R&D financing communities caused by COVID-19.

A selection of SCALEUP teams can be found below, and the full project selections can be found HERE. For more information on the SCALEUP program, click HERE.

Switched Source LLC – Vestal, NY

Scaling Up Cost-Effective Grid Modernization – $8,560,000

Switched Source is introducing the next generation of distribution automation technology for large commercial and industrial customers and electric utilities, which cost-effectively improves the electric distribution grid’s reliability, resiliency, and distributed generation hosting capacity. Switched Source’s product portfolio consists of two patented smart grid devices that actively manage real and reactive power flows on medium voltage systems. The critical next step to gain acceptance as a viable investment and validated utility technology is through structured demonstration projects on partner utility electric distribution systems, with third-party performance evaluations. SCALEUP will enable Switched Source to resolve remaining technology and commercial adoption risks by establishing the processes, infrastructure, and technology validation to bring a game-changing ARPA-E technology to the utility market.

LongPath Technologies Inc. – Boulder, CO

Basin-SCAN: Basin Scale Continuous oil and gas emissions Abatement Network – $5,000,000

LongPath Technologies proposes the largest continuous emissions monitoring network for the oil and gas industry. The network will be able to locate and size natural gas emissions in real time across 700 square miles of the Permian basin in the Southwest U.S. Project objectives include scaling up a network to cover 850+ oil and gas facilities, reducing system costs, expanding value-added services on the sensor platform, and quantitatively proving net gains of continuous monitoring. Potential impacts include reducing oil and gas production emissions by 60-80% basin wide.

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