ARPA-E helps to translate cutting-edge inventions into technological innovations that could change how we use, generate and store energy. In just seven years, ARPA-E technologies are demonstrating technical and commercial progress, surpassing $1.25 billion in private sector follow on funding. In this video, ARPA-E Director Dr. Ellen D. Williams highlights an exciting project from Stanford University that is developing a radiative cooling technology that could enable buildings, power plants, solar cells and even clothing to cool without using electric power or loss of water. This project is just one example among ARPA-E’s 400+ innovative technologies that are reimagining energy and helping to create a more secure, affordable and sustainable American energy future.
Many of ARPA-E’s technology programs seek to break down silos and build new technological communities around a specific energy challenge. In this video, ARPA-E’s Deputy Director for Technology Eric Rohlfing, discusses how the Full-Spectrum Optimized Conversion and Utilization of Sunlight (FOCUS) program is bringing together the photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) communities to develop hybrid solar energy systems. This video features interviews with innovators from the FOCUS project team made up by Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, and showcases how the FOCUS program is combining the best elements of two types of solar to get the most out of the full solar spectrum.
ARPA-E’s Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture (TERRA) program is bringing together top experts from different disciplines – agriculture, robotics and data analytics – to rethink the production of advanced biofuel crops. ARPA-E Program Director Dr. Joe Cornelius discusses the TERRA program and explains how ARPA-E’s model enables multidisciplinary collaboration among diverse communities. The video focuses on two TERRA projects—Donald Danforth Center and Purdue University—that are developing and integrating cutting-edge remote sensing platforms, complex data analytics tools and plant breeding technologies to tackle the challenge of sustainably increasing biofuel stocks.
ARPA-E is supporting some of the best and brightest scientific minds across the country to turn aspirational ideas into tangible technology options. By presenting an ambitious energy challenge to the U.S. research and development community, ARPA-E attracts ideas from a diverse group of innovators, representing traditional and non-traditional energy backgrounds, who look to address energy challenges in new and exciting ways. Founder and CEO of Alveo Energy Dr. Colin Wessels and Co-Founder and CEO of Indoor Reality Dr. Avideh Zakhor are two ARPA-E project investigators that have made great progress, with support from the ARPA-E Tech-to-Market team, in advancing their technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace.
With more than 250 conceptual designs submitted, we are pleased to highlight the winners of the LIghtweighting Technologies Enabling Comprehensive Automotive Redesign (LITECAR) Challenge. These innovative conceptual designs seek to lightweight a vehicle while maintaining or exceeding current U.S. automotive safety standards. Learn more about the winning designs in this video and this blog post on the ARPA-E website.
The goal of the LIghtweighting Technologies Enabling Comprehensive Automotive Redesign (LITECAR) Challenge is to identify conceptual solutions that are beyond the state-of-the-art in the area of (but not limiting to) advanced materials, structural design, advanced manufacturing, and energy absorbing mechanisms to enable future lightweight and safe vehicles. LITECAR is not looking for incremental improvements but pioneering solutions to tackle this problem. Participants are encouraged to comprehensively redesign the entire vehicle prioritizing lightweight and safe designs.
Technical success is one thing, but commercial success is another. ARPA-E’s unique Technology-to-Market program was designed to help our awardees move their research out of the lab and into the market, accelerating the adoption of potentially game-changing technologies. The Technology-to-Market team is dedicated to the common goal of answering the fundamental question: if it works, will it matter?
Featuring remarks from Cheryl Martin, ARPA-E’s Deputy Director for Commercialization, as well as interviews with three members of the Technology-to-Market team, this video demonstrates ARPA-E’s commitment to both the development and deployment of transformational energy technologies. The video also incorporates footage shot on site with several ARPA-E awardees, much of which will be highlighted in other videos shown throughout the 2015 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit.
Strong strategic partnerships can be the difference between those technologies that only achieve success in the lab and those that actually break into the marketplace. Two ARPA-E awardees—AutoGrid and APEI—have forged strategic partnerships that have positioned their technologies to achieve major success in the market. This video features remarks from ARPA-E Technology-to-Market Advisor Josh Gould and interviews with technologists at AutoGrid and APEI, who each tell the story of how their company leveraged relationships with strategic partners to broaden their customer base and bring their technology to life.
The story of an ARPA-E awardee doesn’t necessarily end when ARPA-E funding runs out. Two ARPA-E awardees—Eagle Picher Technologies and Baldor Electric Company—have developed technologies to the point where internal stakeholders of their respective companies committed additional funds to help these technologies achieve success in the market. This video features remarks from ARPA-E Technology-to-Market Advisor Kacy Gerst and interviews with technologists at Eagle Picher and Baldor, who each tell the story of how they achieved buy-in from their internal leadership to further develop their ARPA-E-funded technologies.
Many ARPA-E-funded universities and research institutions have created start-up companies to further catalyze their next-generation technologies. Ambri and BlackPak are two examples of ARPA-E projects that were spun out by other institutions—Massachusetts Institute of Technology and SRI International, respectively—in an effort to get their technologies out of the lab and into the market quickly. This video features remarks from ARPA-E Senior Commercialization Advisor Sue Babinec and interviews with technologists at Ambri and BlackPak, who each tell the story of how their new companies spun out of the lab and have become agile, thriving startups capable of delivering real products to the marketplace.