Demonstrating how helpful government support can be for the future of U.S. energy, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has announced that a group of 74 project teams has attracted over $1.8 billion in private-sector follow-on funding since the agency’s founding in 2009.
In addition, the U.S. agency, tasked with supporting transformative innovation in the energy sector, says 56 projects have formed new companies, 68 projects have partnered with other government agencies for further development, and an ever-increasing number of technologies have been incorporated into products sold on the market today. ARPA-E says these data illustrate the agency’s critical role in supporting early-stage, high-potential, high-impact technologies to the point where additional investment can be leveraged for continued development and deployment in the marketplace.
“At just eight years old, ARPA-E is a young agency, but these newest numbers demonstrate just how well the energy innovation community we are building is working,” states ARPA-E Acting Director Eric Rohlfing. “The private sector plays a critical part in this community, and it is thrilling to see the technologies from our projects becoming market-ready energy products with full private support. The ARPA-E model is proving itself in a truly impressive way.”
To date, ARPA-E has provided approximately $1.5 billion in research and development funding across more than 580 projects through 36 focused programs and three open funding solicitations. As part of the U.S. Energy Department, the agency is charged by Congress to maintain U.S. competitiveness in the energy space, which ARPA-E says it achieves through targeted support of projects that, if successful, could transform how Americans generate, store and use energy.
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