Latest TCF projects include $20 million for national labs, private sector partners
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will split $20 million between 10 national labs and 71 partners from the private sector, as part of the latest round of projects covered by the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF).
Begun in 2005, the TCF helps deploy energy technologies for market use. Some of these funds will be matched from the private sector. For example, $750,000 of the funds will be used for the development of fluoride-salt-cooled high-temperature reactor designs and licensing, and $150,000 will be used to improve electric grid reliability and resiliency through new optical fiber-based amplifiers.
“The Department of Energy is one of the largest supporters of technology transfer within the federal government,” U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said. “By connecting innovators at our national labs with entrepreneurs in the private sector, DOE is breaking down barriers and finding the nexus between ingenuity and opportunity. The projects announced today will further strengthen those efforts across a broad spectrum of energy technologies and advance DOE’s important mission of technology transfer.”
The selected projects were chosen from more than 100 applications for this year’s funding. They were divided into two topics. The first dealt with personal technology maturation activities meant to attract private partners. The second categorized projects that identify cooperative development of lab-developed technologies alongside private partners with an end goal of boosting their commercial viability.
