Project Grant DESC0024962

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program awarded a $135,956 project grant to South Dakota State University (SDSU) to develop a highly efficient, modular, and scalable power system that integrates photovoltaic, energy storage, and smart micro-inverter technologies. The goal is to create a novel power conversion system architecture and control capabilities to enable greater penetration of solar energy into the electric grid and support grid stability and resilience. The key...

This Project Grant award of $433,286 from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to improve the size and efficiency of buck-boost power converters by leveraging advancements in wide-bandgap semiconductor technology and capacitor-based topologies. The 5-year project, starting on April 1, 2025, focuses on developing a framework of condensed buck-boost converters with dramatically increased power density and efficiency across a wide range of operating...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $275,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project grant to Fourth Power, Inc., a minority-owned small business, to develop an energy storage technology that stores electricity as heat and converts it back to electricity using thermophotovoltaics (TPV). The goal is to create a low-cost battery system that can decouple power and energy, enabling discharge durations between 1-100 hours, which is not currently achievable with other...

This $36,034,716 federal Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Energy's Grid Infrastructure Deployment and Resilience (CFDA 81.254) program will fund a partnership between the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and a host transmission utility. The project aims to install an Automatic Power Factor Controller (APFC) device, the SmartValve, at an interregional grid tie to reduce tap changes and increase the control range of a Phase Shifting Transformer (PST) across a regional...

This Cooperative Agreement award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) provides $997,018.00 to XL Batteries Inc. to design and fabricate a prototype 1 kW/10 kWh flow battery system using proprietary electrolytes and low-cost materials. The goal is to develop a long-duration, grid-scale energy storage solution to support the increased deployment of renewable energy and achieve climate goals. The 2-year project...

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $32,629,975 Cooperative Agreement to the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism's Hawaii State Energy Office (HSEO) under the Grid Infrastructure Deployment and Resilience (CFDA 81.254) federal grant program. The funding supports the Utility Solar Grid Forming Technology (USGFT) project, a combined systems application that integrates resources into the generation and transmission system to provide services to the distribution...

The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awarded a $1,120,000 Cooperative Agreement to the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) on July 1, 2024. The goal of this three-year project is to develop a prototype 1 kWh rechargeable solid-state lithium-air battery (RSS-LAB) with a gravimetric energy density over 1,000 Wh/kg and a volumetric energy density over 1,000 Wh/L, as well as a 100-cycle life. The project also aims to produce a detailed design for a...

This $295,149 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to address protection challenges arising from the increasing penetration of renewable energy in modern electric grids. The University of Denver is the prime recipient, and the project will run from August 1, 2024 to July 31, 2027. The project will explore novel model-driven and data-driven solutions to ensure dependable fault detection and secure relay operation for power grids...

This $101,304,290 federal Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Energy's Grid Infrastructure Deployment and Resilience program (CFDA 81.254) aims to bring clean energy resiliency to critical water utility infrastructure in California. The key objectives include: Demonstrating microgrid projects consisting of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and distributed energy resources to transition water utilities from diesel generators to clean backup power solutions. The project will create...

The Department of Energy's Office of Science Financial Assistance Program (CFDA 81.049) awarded Optivolt Labs Inc. a $199,873 Project Grant on July 22, 2024 to develop an "ULTRA-EFFICIENT INTRA-MODULE BALANCING DC OPTIMIZER FOR SOLAR SYSTEMS". This grant supports Optivolt Labs' efforts to create innovative solar charging technologies that can improve power generation and distribution. As a minority-owned, small disadvantaged business specializing in sustainable energy solutions,...