What Next for ARPA-E? Public Input Requested

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which was launched with Recovery Act funds earlier this year, will conduct workshops in October and November to get public input in developing future programs and funding opportunities.

 

The first workshop will be held Sunday, Oct. 4, in Seattle in conjunction with the DOE-sponsored Electrical Energy Storage Applications and Technology Conference 2009 (EESAT 2009). ARPA-E sees the workshop as an opportunity to engage with leading experts to obtain insight on grid-scale energy storage technology areas ripe for, and in strong need of, transformational technology development. Workshop space is limited. Cost is $110 per attendee. (See the link below for registration information.)

 

Potential topics for future workshops include:

·         Energy storage for electric vehicles

·         Direct solar fuels

·         Waste heat recovery/solid state lighting

·         Carbon capture and sequestration

 

ARPA-E announced its first $150 million funding opportunity using stimulus money back in April. It was focused on high-risk, high-payoff transformational energy technologies—in other words, technologies with the potential to create new paradigms in how energy is produced, transmitted, used, and/or stored. The agency received approximately 3,500 concept papers in response to that FOA and expects to announce its awards later this fall.

 

ARPA-E is currently planning future solicitations as part of its ongoing mission to fund and support transformational energy-related technology R&D and the upcoming workshops are intended to help inform that process.

 

In other recent ARPA-E developments: President Obama announced earlier this month his intent to nominate Arun Majumdar to lead the agency. Majumdar is currently the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also been an entrepreneur, and has served as an advisor to startup companies and venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley.

 

   ARPA-E targeted public workshops