Another $100 million for energy research

Another $100 million in Recovery Act funding will soon be made available to accelerate innovation in green technology, boost America’s competitiveness and create new jobs, says the DoE. Three areas of focus for the funds are Grid-Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage (GRIDS), Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT), and Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT).

Among the goals: To develop energy efficient cooling technologies and air conditioners for buildings to save energy and reduce GHG emissions from primary energy consumption and refrigerants used in vapor compression systems. DoE also wants to invest in materials for fundamental advances in soft magnetics, high voltage switches, and reliable, high-density charge storage. These investments will be coupled to advanced circuit architectures, and scalable manufacturing processes with the potential to leapfrog existing power converter performance while offering reductions in cost.

Specifically, three categories of performance and integration level will be considered: 1) fully-integrated, chip-scale power converters for  solid-state lighting, distributed micro-inverters for photovoltaics, and single-chip power supplies for computers, 2) kilowatt scale package integrated power converters for grid-tied photovoltaics and variable speed motors, and 3) lightweight, solid-state, medium voltage energy conversion for high power applications such as solid-state electrical substations and wind turbine generators. More details are in the DoE release:

http://www.energy.gov/news/8696.htm