At the southernmost edge of the Georgia Tech campus there stands a building as remarkable for its futuristic exterior as for the next-generation R&D that goes on within its walls. While the university’s Carbon Neutral-Energy Solutions Laboratory (CNES) is covered almost entirely in solar panels, the range of innovative technologies being developed inside embodies the “all of the above” strategy that defines the government agency responsible for funding many of its projects: the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E).

ARPA-E Acting Director Dr. Cheryl Martin recently visited CNES to tour the lab and experience firsthand the types of game-changing technologies it’s producing—technologies that could create a more secure, affordable, and sustainable American future.

Since its inception, ARPA-E has funded eight projects at Georgia Tech, which developed the CNES two years ago to bring together the best and brightest minds in energy, with the added goal of having the building itself serve as a physical demonstration of their multidisciplinary efforts.

On her tour, Martin met with three ARPA-E project teams currently developing technologies at CNES and participated in a roundtable discussion on energy innovation with researchers, industry representatives, and policymakers, including Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA). Additionally, Martin attended a breakfast for women in STEM and met with the Georgia Tech student energy club.

Martin met with Dr. Asegun Henry’s  team of researchers, who are using ARPA-E funds to design a high-efficiency solar receiver and reactor. The system could generate electricity using low-cost solar panels when the sun is shining and a thermal receiver that can store the sun’s heat so it can be dispatched on-demand, whether the sun is shining or not. 

Martin also met with Dr. Srinivas Garimella to examine a modular thermal hub built by his ARPA-E project team. This technology could one day enable clean, cost-effective cooling and heating within buildings using energy sources such as waste heat or solar.

Martin later spent time with a multidisciplinary team of graduate students led by Dr. Santiago Grijalva, whose ARPA-E funded project envisions  a decentralized and massively scalable “energy operating system” capable of supporting a large network of interconnected microgrids, utilities, buildings, and electric vehicles. The team recently won the ACC $100K Clean Energy Challenge, a business plan competition organized by the Department of Energy.

Dr. Martin’s whirlwind, multidisciplinary energy innovation tour concluded with a visit to Georgia Tech’s Centergy Building for a meeting with Keith McGreggor and Ben Hill of VentureLab. An award-winning business incubator, VentureLab is a critical link in the value chain, pushing to successfully commercialize types of early-stage technologies created by ARPA-E funded projects.