AMO Awards Nearly $5 Million to Support American Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced the selection of 109 new projects across 27 states, totaling nearly $21.8 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) research and development programs. Small businesses play a major role in spurring innovation and creating jobs in the U.S. economy, and the SBIR and STTR programs have helped thousands of American small businesses and entrepreneurs develop a range of cutting-edge technologies to help accelerate the nation’s transition to a clean energy economy.

Through the SBIR and STTR programs, the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) supports small business projects that improve energy efficiency, material productivity, and drive U.S. industrial decarbonization and competitiveness for American manufacturers.

AMO selected 25 projects for funding or co-funding from the following topics:

• Community-Driven Solutions for a Just and Equitable Energy Transition: A joint topic among AMO and seven other EERE technology offices to develop equitable and inclusive innovative technology solutions for current and future energy challenges and needs.
• Diversifying Sustainable Sources of Critical Materials: A joint topic between AMO and DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) to develop new technologies to responsibly extract raw critical minerals and materials (CMM) in the United States.
• CABLE Characterization and Modeling for Fabrication: A joint topic among AMO and other EERE technology offices, along with DOE’s Office of Electricity to increase experimental and theoretical understanding of Conductivity-enhanced materials for Affordable, Breakthrough Leapfrog Electric and thermal applications (CABLE). These conductivity-enhanced materials will accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon grid and support a decarbonized economy through electrification.
• Advanced Manufacturing: An AMO-funded topic focused on developing several technologies to decarbonize industry including the following subtopics:
  • Industrial Heat Pumps
  • High Operating Temperature Storage
  • Advanced Packaging for High Voltage Power Electronics
  • Affordable Technologies for Controlled Environment Agriculture
  • Analog Semiconductor Devices for Sensing and Communications in Manufacturing

For a full list of AMO-funded and co-funded projects, visit the AMO website.

The SBIR and STTR programs were created by Congress to leverage small businesses to advance innovation at federal agencies. Information on the DOE SBIR and STTR programs is available on the Office of Science SBIR website.