The funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), is also aimed at increasing America's competitiveness in grid scale energy storage, power electronics and building efficiency.

The clean and renewable energy projects are based in 18 states, with 36% of projects led by universities, 33% by small businesses, 24% by large businesses, 5% by national labs, and 2% by non-profits.

The awards complete ARPA-E’s grants under its Recovery Act funding: in three rounds of awards since last year, the agency has selected a total of 117 projects for US$349m in funding, “supporting research that can deliver breakthrough changes in how the US generates, stores, and utilizes energy,” DoE says.

The topic areas for projects include:

1. Grid-Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage (GRIDS):

Energy storage will be needed to enable the widespread use of two key renewable energy sources: wind and solar power. The program seeks to develop new storage technologies that exhibit energy, cost, and cycle life comparable to pumped hydropower, but which are modular and can be widely implemented at any location across the power grid. Ultimately, technologies developed through this program will be scalable to the gigawatt and gigawatt-hour levels of power and energy capacity.

The technology development program complements other DoE electrical energy storage efforts by focusing on early stage prototyping and proof-of-concept R&D efforts. One of the GRIDS projects being funded is:

General Atomics (San Diego, CA) - Soluble Acid Lead Flow Battery (US$2m)

General Atomics and the University of California San Diego will develop a flow battery technology that pumps chemicals through the battery cell when electricity is needed. The proposed flow battery achieves low cost, high efficiency and reliability needed for use on the electric power grid. This high-risk technology development program will use new materials that greatly increase power while resisting the corrosion that limits the cycle life of conventional lead acid batteries. The goal of the innovations is a battery that can be scaled for grid-scale energy storage but which costs less and performs far longer than today’s technologies.

2. Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT):

ADEPT is focused on improving the efficiency and cost of power conversion and switching, among the main causes of electrical efficiency loss across the electrical grid and in electrical applications from cars to computers. The projects explore integrated circuits that incorporate high-voltage transistors and high-performance magnetic materials in applications such as: drivers for LED lighting that are 300 times smaller, power supplies for computers that are 10 times smaller, and light-weight chargers for electric vehicles. The components will enable miniaturization, increased efficiency and reduced cost. ADEPT is also focused on creating high-voltage transistors that can allow the electricity grid to be used like a large controllable, circuit. One of the ADEPT projects being funded is:

Cree Inc. (Durham, NC) - Silicon Carbide Power Modules for Grid Scale Power Conversion (US$3.7m)

This project will develop advanced transistors for electrical substations that can make the electrical grid more flexible and controllable. Using silicon carbide material, the transistors Could achieve voltage of 15-20kV. With these transistors, electrical substations could replace today’s 8000 lb distribution transformers with much smaller, suitcase-sized electronic transformers (100 lbs).

3. Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT):

Cooling is one of the major uses of energy in buildings, yet the basic approaches used for cooling have not changed in decades. New, more efficient methods of cooling represent a great opportunity to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from buildings. In addition, the refrigerants currently used in cooling are a potent source of GHG emissions, as much as 1000 times as powerful as CO2. The BEET-IT program is focused on developing new approaches and technologies for cooling in buildings to improve energy efficiency and reduce the use of refrigerants and their impact on climate change. One of the BEET-IT projects being funded is:

Battelle Memorial Institute (Columbus, OH) - Absorption-Osmosis Cooling Cycle (US$400,000)

This project will develop a new air-conditioning system using water as a refrigerant – instead of typical chemicals that are potent greenhouse gases – and using salt as the heat absorber. The system uses reverse osmosis to separate water from the salt solution. This approach has the potential to increase the energy efficiency of air conditioning by more than 50%.