Friday, August 3, 2012

Local Firms Reap Part of $43M ARPA-E Energy Storage Grants

Three, local projects are among the institutions and companies to receive a chunk of a $43M chunk of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). According to the Department of Energy, it awarded a total of $43M in funding to help scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to develop breakthrough energy storage technologies. Among the awardees were Utah State University, which received $3,070,051 for its work on cell level battery management, expected to help reduce electric vehicle battery packs; ITN Energy Systems in Littleton, Colorado, which is developing vanadium flow batteries aimed at grid-scale energy storage; and Material & Systems Research of Salt Lake City, which is developing advanced sodium battery membranes, also for grid-scale batteries. ARPA-E said the projects are aimed at improving efficiency and reliability of the electrical grid and provide important energy security benefits to America's armed forces. Image courtesy of Bigstock.