DOE Announces Stimulus Funding for new SBIRs

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The Department of Energy gets it. On several levels. Stimulus means creating opportunities for creating jobs. Clean Energy is currently a cool technology to support. R&D without commercialization is just, well, academic.

So, the DOE is putting a nice chunk of their ARRA Stimulus money ($8.5 million) into new Phase I SBIR and STTR projects that place an emphasis on near-term, clean energy technology commercialization. Sixty six-month Phase I projects will be funded in amounts up to $150,000.

The Funding Opportunity Number is DE-PS02-09ER09-27. (CFDA 81.049)

Here's the complete topic list (For details: technical topic descriptions)

Topic 1: Advanced Building Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, Thermal Load Shifting, and Cool Roofs
a. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration in Buildings
b. Thermal Load Shifting
c. Advanced Materials for Roofing that Provides High IR Reflectivity, and is Architecturally Acceptable, Including Cool Roofs

Topic 2: Water Usage in Electric Power Production and Industrial Processes
a. Water Desalination for Use in Power Plants, Industrial Processes, etc.
b. Water Cleanup, Recycle and Reuse from Use in Power Plants, Industrial Processes, etc., Before Discharge
c. Desalination Using Concentrating Solar Power (CSP)

Topic 3: Power Plant Cooling
a. Advanced Dry or Hybrid Wet/dry Cooling Systems
b. Advanced Heat Exchangers for Super-critical Water Cycle Based Power Plants
c. Advanced Heat Exchangers for High Temperature, High Pressure Applications

Topic 4: Advanced Gas Turbines and Materials
a. Advanced Turbine Technology for IGCC Power Plants
b. High Performance Materials for Nuclear Application
c. Advanced Industrial Materials
d. Novel Modular Designs for High-efficiency Low-cost Distributed Power Applications

Topic 5: Sensors, Controls, and Wireless Networks
a. Sensors and Wireless Networks for Buildings Applications
b. Sensors and Wireless Networks for Industry Applications
c. Sensors and Wireless Networks for Nuclear Power Applications
d. Integrated Power Line Sensor Systems for the Smart Grid

Topic 6: Advanced Water Power Technology Development
a. Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH)
b. Advanced Hydropower Systems
c. Wave and Current Energy Technologies
d. Advanced Component Designs for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Systems (OTEC)

Topic 7: Smart Controllers for Smart Grid Applications
a. Smart Controller for Household
b. Smart Controllers for PEV
c. Smart Controller to Enable the Dispatch of Distributed Energy Generators

Topic 8: Advanced Solar Technologies
a. Hybrid Solar Energy Systems: Combination of Photovoltaic, Solar Heat, and/or Solar Cooling
b. Innovative Applications of Solar Energy for Fuels
c. Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Systems for Distributed Applications
d. Organic Photovoltaic and Nanotech/Photonics

Topic 9: Advanced Industrial Technologies Development
a. Novel Approaches that Significantly Reduce Energy Consumption and Emissions in Cement Pyroprocessing
b. Scale-Up of Nano-Material Production
c. Novel Technologies that Utilize Waste Heat from Industrial Processes
d. Industrial Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

Topic 10: Advanced Manufacturing Processes
a. Mitigation of Heat Losses, Fouling, and Scaling in Manufacturing Unit Operations
b. Advanced Distillation and Non-Distillation Processes
c. Advanced Dewatering

You can see the complete solicitation on the DOE SBIR website (http://www.science.doe.gov/sbir/) or on Grants.gov.

These projects can be styled as SBIR or STTR projects. Applications are due by September 4th.

You have to use Grants.gov (oh goodie!) to submit the proposal so better get started NOW to get the CCR and Grants.gov registrations done in time.

Thanks for this opportunity, DOE! Now, how about the rest of you Agencies?
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