November 9, 2009 The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $151 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds on October 26 for 37 energy research projects under the recently formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). ARPA-E’s mission is to develop inventive approaches to transform the global energy landscape while advancing U.S. technology leadership by creating jobs and cutting carbon pollution.
This first round of grants will go to researchers and inventors in 17 states and will support the research and development of new renewable energy technologies for solar cells, wind turbines, geothermal drilling, biofuels, and biomass energy crops. Six grants will go to energy storage technologies, including an ultracapacitor, improved lithium-ion batteries, metal-air batteries that use ionic liquids, liquid sodium batteries, and liquid metal batteries.
The grants will also support a variety of energy efficiency technologies, including power electronics and engine-generators for advanced vehicles, devices for waste heat recovery, electrically controlled windows and control systems for smart buildings, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), reverse-osmosis membranes for water desalination, catalysts to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, improved fuel cell membranes, and more energy-dense magnetic materials for a variety of electronic components.
