The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) has introduced the Voucher Program, a new initiative in collaboration with the Offices of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The program aims to provide $27.5 million in support to organizations involved in bringing innovative energy technologies to the national market. This funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). The Voucher Program will be administered through a partnership intermediary agreement with ENERGYWERX, who will facilitate third-party support to accelerate the commercialization of clean energy technologies.
Program Goals
The program seeks to reduce barriers for small businesses, non-traditional partners, and underrepresented communities by providing access to testing facilities and expensive third-party expertise necessary for advancing their energy projects. Currently, the Voucher Program offers four categories of in-kind support, including pre-demonstration commercialization support, performance validation and certification support, clean energy demonstration project siting/permitting support and EERE commercialization support. Additional categories may be added in the future.
The program aims to address adoption risks, evaluate technology performance, assist in project siting/permitting, and provide commercialization strategy assistance. The DOE plans to open the program for submissions later in the summer of 2023, and updates regarding the program will be available on energywerx.org.
For more information, please visit the DOE article linked here: https://www.energy.gov/technologytransitions/articles/doe-announces-new-275m-voucher-program-bring-innovative-energy