Webinar: Small Business Vouchers Round 2 overview

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a webinar which offers clarifications on the application process for the second cycle of the US Department of Energy’s Small Business Vouchers (SBV) pilot programme.

In addition, the webinar describes the SBV Pilot goals, purpose, and background, and highlights the Round 1 voucher awardees.

As reported earlier, DoE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is funding up to $20 million worth of vouchers to eligible small businesses as part of the SBV Pilot to help advance the clean energy economy.

The vouchers can be used by small businesses to collaborate with national laboratories by gaining access to their expertise and tools that can help small businesses to test, validate, and introduce new products, and to grow the clean energy sector.

A total of 33 small businesses have recently been selected to collaborate with national laboratories through this first round of SBV grants, including Columbia Power Technologies with its StingRAY wave energy device, which will collaborate with National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories, to accelerate the commercialization of its WEC.

SBV Pilot Programme has made available up to $2.2 million for products using waves, tides and waterways for environmentally safe power in voucher opportunity areas of marine and hydrokinetics, and hydropower.

The applications for the second round of SBV Pilot will be accepted from March 10 until April 10, 2016.