U.S. Dept. of Energy Launches Small Business Voucher Program

The U.S. Department of Energy, in conjunction with a number of national laboratories, recently announced a new small business voucher program for clean-energy businesses. The initiative is a pilot program that seeks to find clean-energy small businesses with innovative technologies that would benefit from national laboratory technical assistance and capabilities. The program offers selected businesses up to $300,000 in assistance in the form of lab expertise (e.g., testing and technical input). Selected businesses are matched with handpicked experts at the national labs that use this funding to help businesses create and commercialize new and improved products and processes.

Examples of assistance the voucher program would provide to small businesses include addressing technical problems, testing and validating technologies, developing and testing unique materials, and conducting modeling and analyses. Other examples include providing advanced technology for hardware and software applications, prototyping, improving production and manufacturing processes, scaling up technologies and processes, developing engineering designs, field-testing and conducting techno-economic analyses to understand market value.

Eligible businesses must be for profit with no more than 500 full-time equivalent employees worldwide and be based and owned within the U.S. Products categorized as intellectual property developed under the assistance of this grant must be substantially manufactured within the U.S.

For more information about the small business voucher program, call 803-737-0411, or visit PalmettoCleanFuels.org or sbv.org.