Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced nearly $16 million in funding to help businesses commercialize promising energy technologies from DOE’s National Laboratories to the marketplace. This is the first Department-wide funding allocation through the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) that will support 54 projects at 12 national labs involving 52 private-sector partners. To read more about the TCF, read on!

The TCF is administered by DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), which was established in 2015 to oversee and advance its mission of expanding the commercial impact of DOE’s portfolio of research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities over the short, medium, and long term. OTT is also tasked with engaging with businesses and industrial sectors across the U.S. such as manufacturing, energy, and technology through the technology commercialization process.

In February of 2016, OTT announced the first solicitation to the DOE National Laboratories for TCF funding proposals and received 104 applications from different laboratory systems. The 54 projects selected for the TCF will receive an equal amount of non-federal funds to match the federal investment. “The funds announced today will help to accelerate the commercialization of cutting-edge energy technologies developed in our national labs, making them more widely available to American consumers and businesses,” said Lynn Orr, DOE’s Under Secretary for Science and Energy. The TCF selections will expand the Department’s efforts to accelerate the commercial impact of today’s portfolio of cutting-edge research and technologies.