DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) has issued its solicitation for FY20 Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) proposals. Proposal Eligibility Declarations are due by October 10, 2019, 5pm (ET).  Contact shanshanli@lbl.gov in the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) if interested in participating, as TCF projects must involve Lab-developed IP.  Contact Todd Pray at tpray@lbl.gov, Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer, if you have any questions regarding the CRADA contracting process required to include industry and cost-share partners.

A Brown Bag meeting was held on Monday, September 16 from 12 P.M. – 1 P.M. in 50A-5132. Click here to download a copy of the presentation.

A pre-recorded webinar can also be found here.

The TCF program offers an opportunity for private industry to partner with DOE’s national labs to advance lab-developed energy technologies and intellectual property (IP) toward commercialization. Projects will likely cover energy generation technologies from DOE’s applied energy offices:

• Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER)
• Electricity (OE)
• Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy (EERE)
• Fossil Energy (FE)
• Nuclear Energy (NE)

TCF projects require that half of all project costs come from non-federal sources, including industry. Eligible projects are expected to fall in one of two topics:

Topic 1

Eligible Topic 1 projects must involve existing DOE lab-developed technology or IP that demonstrates evidence of commercial potential – with or without a private partner. Projects funded under Topic 1 have a performance period of 6-18 months. The target Topic 1 award amount is $100,000-$250,000.

Evidence of commercial potential includes analytical and experimental proof of concept demonstrated in a laboratory environment. For example, have experiments or modeling and simulation validated performance predictions? Have design techniques been identified or developed? Have scaling studies been initiated?

Topic 2

Eligible Topic 2 projects must involve existing lab-developed technology or IP, and the laboratory must have a non-Federal partner with a defined commercial application for the technology. Projects funded under Topic 2 have a performance period of 12-36 months. The target Topic 2 award amount is $250,000-$1,500,000.

For Topics 1 and 2, cost match partner(s) must be identified in the full proposal. A CRADA or other approved partnership agreement does not have to be in place to be eligible for award. However, if funds are allocated before a CRADA or other approved agreement or is in place, work may not begin until one is executed.

For Topic 2, if a CRADA or other approved agreement is not executed within 6 months of DOE’s obligating the funds to the DOE Facility, the award may be cancelled. A project or work scope under an existing CRADA or other partnership agreement is not eligible for an award under the TCF. Contact Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer Todd Pray, tpray@lbl.gov, for partnerships support.

Two Berkeley Lab technologies earned FY19 DOE TCF awards:

• High Throughput Cell-Free Microreactor for Optimization of Biochemical Pathways, $535,000 (PI Anup Singh with LanzaTech)
• Localization of hot spots in solids using acoustic waves for energy generation and other applications, $150,000 (PI Maxim Marchevsky with Commonwealth Fusion Systems)

Berkeley Lab has received a total of nine TCF awards since the program’s initiation in FY16.

Over $24 million was awarded to a total of 77 projects in the FY19 round. For a list of all FY19 TCF awardees, go to https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-announces-2019-technology-commercialization-fund-projects.