REFUEL (SBIR/STTR)

The summary for the REFUEL (SBIR/STTR) grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

REFUEL (SBIR/STTR): Renewable Energy to Fuels Through Utilization of Energy-Dense Liquids (REFUEL) (SBIR/STTR)

Agency Overview:
The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), an organization within the Department of Energy (DOE), is chartered by Congress in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-69), as amended by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-358) to:

“(A) to enhance the economic and energy security of the United States through the development of energy technologies that result in—
(i) reductions of imports of energy from foreign sources;
(ii) reductions of energy-related emissions, including greenhouse gases; and
(iii) improvement in the energy efficiency of all economic sectors; and
(B) to ensure that the United States maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies.”

ARPA-E issues this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) under the programmatic authorizing statute codified at 42 U.S.C. § 16538. The FOA and any awards made under this FOA are subject to 2 C.F.R. Part 200 as amended by 2 C.F.R. Part 910.

ARPA-E funds research on and the development of high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. The agency focuses on technologies that can be meaningfully advanced with a modest investment over a defined period of time in order to catalyze the translation from scientific discovery to early-stage technology. For the latest news and information about ARPA-E, its programs and the research projects currently supported, see: http://arpa-e.energy.gov/.

ARPA-E funds transformational research. Existing energy technologies generally progress on established “learning curves” where refinements to a technology and the economies of scale that accrue as manufacturing and distribution develop drive down the cost/performance metric in a gradual fashion. This continual improvement of a technology is important to its increased commercial deployment and is appropriately the focus of the private sector or the applied technology offices within DOE. By contrast, ARPA-E supports transformative research that has the potential to create fundamentally new learning curves. ARPA-E technology projects typically start with cost/performance estimates well above the level of an incumbent technology. Given the high risk inherent in these projects, many will fail to progress, but some may succeed in generating a new learning curve with a projected cost/performance metric that is significantly lower than that of the incumbent technology.

SBIR/STTR Program Overview:

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are Government-wide programs authorized under Section 9 of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. § 638). The objectives of the SBIR program are to (1) stimulate technological innovation in the private sector, (2) strengthen the role of Small Business Concerns in meeting Federal R&D needs, (3) increase private sector commercialization of innovations derived from Federal R&D activities, (4) foster and encourage participation by socially and economically disadvantaged and women-owned Small Business Concerns, and (5) improve the return on investment from Federally funded research and economic benefits to the Nation. The objective of the STTR program is to stimulate cooperative partnerships of ideas and technologies between Small Business Concerns and partnering Research Institutions through Federally funded R&D activities.

ARPA-E administers a joint SBIR/STTR program in accordance with the Small Business Act and the SBIR and STTR Policy Directives issued by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). ARPA-E provides SBIR/STTR funding in three phases (Phase I, Phase II, and Phase IIS).

Program Overview:

The purpose of the Renewable Energy to Fuels through Utilization of Energy-dense Liquids (REFUEL) program is to develop scalable technologies for conversion of electrical or thermal energy from renewable sources into chemical energy contained in energy dense Carbon-Neutral Liquid Fuels (CNLF) that can be stored, transported, and later converted into hydrogen or electricity to provide power for transportation and distributed energy generation. The overall structure of the REFUEL program is illustrated in Figure 1 below. Because CNLFs can be stored for extended periods of time and then transported to consumers using existing and inexpensive technology for liquid fuel delivery and distribution, they offer a unique opportunity to reduce both the need for energy imports and carbon emissions from the transportation sector. In meeting that need, they also have the potential to enable increased penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources. The success of this program depends on developing technologies in two categories: (1) the synthesis of CNLFs using intermittent renewable energy sources and water and air (N2 and CO2) as the only chemical input streams and (2) the conversion of CNLFs delivered to the end point to another form of energy (e.g. hydrogen or electricity).

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov. ARPA-E will not review or consider concept papers submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx).