This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

May 15, 2013

$16 Million Set for Small Businesses Focused on Energy Technologies

The Energy Department on May 9 announced that it will award 88 grants to small businesses in 28 states to develop clean energy technologies with a strong potential for commercialization and job creation. These awards, totaling more than $16 million in investments, will help small businesses with promising ideas that could improve manufacturing processes, boost the efficiency of buildings, reduce reliance on foreign oil, and generate electricity from renewable sources. Biomass, geothermal, solar, vehicle manufacturing, and wind are among the renewable energy technologies supported by the grants.

The small businesses receiving the awards are located in 28 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. Proposals include a project to develop printable organic LED lighting panels (OLEDs) that could significantly reduce the manufacturing costs and enable cost-effective production of larger lighting panels, and a project to develop laser welding at an extremely high pulse rate that could dramatically improve defect detection, increase efficiency, and lower the cost of manufacturing automobiles and other goods. The projects are funded through the Energy Department's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The selections are for Phase I and Fast Track (combined Phase I and II) work. See the Energy Department Progress Alert and theSBIR and STTR website.