Are you a company (for-profit entity) who received support from DOE through a research, development, and/or demonstration financial assistance agreement in the last 5 years? This opportunity is designed to provide additional support in the form of a voucher to obtain bankability studies, manufacturing/supply chain assessments, community benefits assessments, and other technoeconomic analyses. The goal is to accelerate the commercialization of your technology and prepare it for the market or for integration into a large-scale first-of-a-kind demonstration project. See below for additional info about eligibility and timeline.

As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Technology Commercialization Fund, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), and Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), in collaboration with ENERGYWERX, is offering its Pre-Demonstration Commercialization Support Voucher Opportunity (VO-1) to eligible companies to increase adoption readiness (with a focus on value proposition and market acceptance) of clean energy technologies.

Submission Deadline

Voucher Provider: September 26, 2023 at 5:00 PM ET

Voucher Recipient: November 7, 2023 at 5:00 PM ET

Objective

The DOE Voucher Program builds bridges between U.S. entrepreneurs, businesses, technology developers or other relevant partners and third-party voucher providers to advance commercialization of innovative energy technologies. Voucher Opportunity (VO-1) addresses key adoption risk areas faced by companies already funded by DOE and leaving the research and development stage, through supporting activities including bankability studies, manufacturing / supply chain assessments, community benefits assessments, and other technoeconomic analyses.

The first submission window solicits proposals from potential voucher providers. A second submission window will be open soon to solicit requests from potential voucher recipients. Pending availability of funds, additional submission windows may open in the future.

Voucher Projects: Expected max voucher worth $50,000 of work. Vouchers will be distributed as in-kind support, meaning that ENERGYWERX will directly reimburse the voucher provider for the work they have completed on behalf of the voucher recipients. Only work related to specific technology areas will be eligible to receive a voucher under this opportunity. List of eligible technology areas:

-   With OCED funding:

• Advanced nuclear
• Carbon management (including carbon capture and direct air capture)
• Long-duration energy storage
• Clean hydrogen
• Industrial decarbonization
• Upgrades to the electric grid

-   With EERE funding:

• Advanced materials and Manufacturing Technologies
• Building efficiency
• Geothermal
• Solar
• Water
• Wind
• Bioenergy
• Vehicle technologies

Please note that funding is not equally available for all technology areas. Some areas have very limited available funding and DOE expects to run out of money for vouchers in those areas faster than other areas. DOE anticipates issuing approximately 100 vouchers for the technology areas funded by OCED and, in addition, 5 vouchers for the technology areas funded by EERE.

Voucher Providers: Including but not limited to independent engineering and consulting firms.

Voucher Recipients: Limited to for-profit companies who had a DOE financial assistance award active at any point after January 1^st, 2019 to develop a proof of concept or product prototype that fits a specific technology area of interest for DOE OCED or EERE and is nearly ready for pilot scale or large-scale demonstration, or commercialization. While the for-profit entity can have received previous R&D financial assistance from any DOE office (including but not limited to Office of Science, EERE, FECM, Nuclear Energy, ARPA-E, the SBIR/STTR office) only companies working on one of the eligible technology areas will be considered.

For more information please visit: https://www.energywerx.org/opportunities/voucher-opportunity-1-recipients-pre-demonstration-commercialization-support-oced-eere