Type solar Championships top University draft picks engineer

By Ramamoorthy Ramesh, Director, SunShot initiative and solar energy technologies program

As national day for college football prospects 1 February hummed football fans on signing, power also to picks from one builds other universities pool of talent.

January 20 DOE announced two university research opportunities, SunShot initiative, a program to promote, which aims, drastically to reduce the total cost of the American solar energy.

Research is team sports such as football, no matter how powerful each player can be. In this sense, DOE provides up to $10 million to partners in University projects to develop and demonstrate heat transfer fluids. The multidisciplinary University research initiative: high operational temperature liquids call looking for applicants to develop innovative liquids, which are more stable than current technologies at temperatures greater than 800 ° c. The goal is improving the efficiency of the technology focus solar energy and solar energy costs lower.

The second option is a second round for the awards SunShot postdoctoral research initiative. The awards, by the Office of energy efficiency and renewable energy, provide an annual grant as other advantages. Read the full story at DOE's energy blog.

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DOD Picks 2012 Energy Technology Installation Demos

The Department of Defense's (DOD) Environmental Security Technology Certification Program on November 18 announced 27 new projects to demonstrate emerging energy technologies on military installations. The Installation Energy Test Bed initiative plays a key role in testing, evaluating, and scaling up innovative new energy technologies to improve DOD's energy security and reduce its facility energy costs. DOD has 300,000 buildings on its installations and spends nearly $4 billion per year on the energy needed to operate them. Demonstrations generate the cost and performance data needed to validate promising technologies, allowing them to be "fielded" and commercialized more rapidly.

This latest round of projects was competitively selected from the 575 proposals submitted by private firms, universities, and federal organizations. The fiscal year 2012 awards cover five areas: smart microgrids and energy storage; advanced component technologies to improve building energy efficiency; advanced building energy management and control technologies; tools and processes for design, assessment, and decision-making associated with energy use; and technologies for renewable energy generation on installations.

On one project, Soladigm Inc, along with partners including DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, will demonstrate dynamic windows to optimize solar heat gain and daylighting at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California. On another project, DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and partners will develop and apply a fleet management tool to schedule charging of plug-in electric vehicles at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California. See the DOD press release and Installation Energy Test Bed Web page.

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