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May 26, 2020 | Tom Ballard

Three “Innovation Crossroads” current or alumni companies among latest DOE SBIR and STTR winners

Twenty companies, including three that are participants in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s “Innovation Crossroads” (IC) program, have received Phase I Release 2 grants under a solicitation from the Building Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

The 20 grants were part of a $53 million announcement made under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR). According to DOE’s announcement, the 20 awards are for about $200,000 for a period of less than one year and are designed to demonstrate technical feasibility for innovations during the first phase of their research.

The three IC-related recipients are:

  • Active Energy Systems Inc. that is focused on enabling a lower-cost, more-efficient thermal energy storage method to provide long-duration resilient cooling when the electric grid is down;
  • Grid Fruit LLC that is developing an integrated hardware and software technology that is a non-invasive automation solution to improve both energy resilience and energy efficiency of centralized and single condensing commercial refrigeration systems; and
  • TCPoly that is developing high-thermal-conductivity PCM-infiltrated 3D printing filaments for advanced thermal energy storage.

TCPoly is part of Cohort 2 that is finishing its two-year program, while Grid Fruit is a member of Cohort 3 that is midway through the program and Active Energy was part of the inaugural cohort.

To learn more, click here for the DOE announcement.


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