Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the first selections of the DOE Office of Science Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, a key element of the Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy that was unveiled in March 2022 at a White House Fusion Summit. Many of these teams and their concepts have received longstanding support from the Office of Science, NNSA, as well as other public and private funding sources. Of the eight selected companies, five have or had a funding connection to ARPA-E: Zap Energy, which spun out from a University of Washington project…

ARPA-E awardee Captura raised $12 million in Series A funding for their direct ocean capture (DOC) technology in a round led by Equinor Ventures, along with Aramco Ventures, the Caltech Seed Fund, Hitachi Ventures, Future Planet Capital, and mTerra Ventures in January 2023. Captura is using this funding to scale up their business and DOC technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) directly out of the ocean. Captura will use this funding to accelerate its piloting program and improve the DOC technology itself, including optimizing the CO2 permeable membranes and reducing CO2 removal costs.On…

CERAWeek brings the global energy industry together to share insights and strategies on what’s next for global energy markets, geopolitics, and technology. CERAWeek convenes government officials, industry leaders, academics, technology innovators, financial leaders, and thought leaders in one space for what Politico has coined the "[energy] industry's Super Bowl.” ARPA-E leadership utilized the 2023 CERAWeek Innovation Agora to engage attendees and give them an update on the agency’s accomplishments and future plans. The Innovation Agora is a part of CERAWeek and covers transformational…

ARPA-E and the California Energy Commission (CEC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), solidifying joint efforts to advance breakthrough energy technologies. “CEC and ARPA-E have long supported transformational energy innovation, and we have shared goals to enhance the economic and energy security of California and our entire nation,” said ARPA-E Director Evelyn N. Wang. “This collaboration will accelerate our critical work to research, develop, demonstrate, and ultimately deploy energy technologies.” “Clean energy research and development is key to combatting the…

On April 11, 2023, ARPA-E awardee Emrgy raised $18.4M for their proprietary hydrokinetic turbine (HKT) in a Series A funding round led by Oval Park Capital, including key investors Fifth Wall, Blitzscaling Ventures, Overlay Capital, and Veriten. Emrgy will use this funding to open their turbine assembly facility in Aurora, Colorado with an estimated production capacity of 5 megawatts per month, deploy their distributed hydropower plants, and hire staff for their development, operations, and engineering teams.Emrgy received $3.34M in ARPA-E funding in September 2021 as part of our Submarine…

ARPA-E awardee Enzinc raised $4.5 million in seed funding for their zinc microsponge EV battery anode in a round led by Portland-based 3x5 Partners in July of 2022. This seed funding, along with a $1.8 million Bringing Rapid Innovation Development to Green Energy (BRIDGE) grant from the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program through the California Energy Commission (CEC), has allowed them to finalize testing of their prototype and design an automated production line for their anode. Alongside the $1.8 million BRIDGE grant, Enzinc has won four out of the five CEC grants within the…

In our final day at the 2023 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, we started with ‘Coffee with ARPA-E,’ a continuation of yesterday’s event where folks had the opportunity to network with and learn from ARPA-E leadership, Program Directors, Technology-to-Market Advisors, and Fellows about opportunities related to ARPA-E and discussions about moving transformational technologies out of the lab and into the market. ​ Coffee with ARPA-E Following ‘Coffee with ARPA-E,’ morning breakout sessions consisted of three panels on the blue economy, ARPA-E’s SCALEUP program, and the new…

We had a jam-packed second day of the 2023 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit. Day 2 of the Summit kicked off with "Coffee with ARPA-E," where attendees had the opportunity to network with ARPA-E leadership, Program Directors, Tech-to-Market Advisors, and Fellows, and to talk about the future of energy innovation and technology. ​ Coffee with ARPA-E The morning began with Fast Pitches about Nuclear and Materials from ARPA-E Program Directors Dr. Ahmed Diallo, Dr. Robert Ledoux, and Dr. Jenifer Shafer. ​ ARPA-E Fast Pitches - Dr. Jenifer Shafer, Dr. Robert Ledoux, and Dr. Ahmed…

The 2023 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit is in full swing here in National Harbor, MD. The Summit began with opening remarks from ARPA-E Director Evelyn Wang. Director Wang shared her journey from being a four-time ARPA-E performer to current ARPA-E Director shaping the direction of the Agency. She reaffirmed her confidence in people’s capacity to transform the energy landscape “when there’s a unified focus on tackling real-world challenges quickly.” ​ ARPA-E Director Dr. Evelyn N. Wang “Together, we can develop real, clean energy solutions that are scalable, deployable, and…

ARPA-E’s Performance-based Energy Resource Feedback, Optimization, and Risk Management (PERFORM) program seeks to develop new grid management systems that represent the relative delivery risk of individual electricity generation resources and balance the collective risk of all assets across the grid. The program has funded twelve project teams across the country to build software platforms that optimize grid management as the penetration of variable renewable resources continues to increase. However, the difficulty of obtaining and sharing sensitive transmission grid data has historically…