ARPA-E request for information: Pre‐pilot and pilot projects to scale, mature, and advance technologies

ANNOUNCEMENT: The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) has published a Request For Information (RFI) focused on supporting scale-up demonstrations of ARPA-E technologies. Unlike normal ARPA-E funding agreements, which typically provide 80%-95% of the financing for bench-scale projects within laboratories, this RFI is geared towards industrial pilot projects, for which ARPA-E would provide “at least 50% cost share.”

ARPA‐E is seeking information to help frame a potential new funding opportunity for public‐private partnerships supporting the further refinement, scaling, and piloting of successful ARPA‐E technologies. The potential program would collaborate with investors and private sector partners to advance promising technologies developed under ARPA‐E awards.
ARPA-E Funding Opportunities, Pre‐pilot and pilot R&D projects to scale, mature, and advance ARPA‐E funded technologies, 04/02/2019

The RFI solicits feedback from three groups: previous ARPA-E awardees; potential investors in those technologies; and industry stakeholders, who could “contribute valuable insights and in‐kind support to the technical challenges of scale‐up, integration, or deployment of new energy technologies in the market.”

While the RFI is not specific to ammonia, there are a number of notable ammonia synthesis and ammonia cracking or fuel cell projects, funded through OPEN awards and the REFUEL project, which are looking to scale-up. “Success of these scale‐up/pilot projects will establish the path forward to continued private sector development and deployment of these transformational technologies.”

According to the announcement, “Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on May 29, 2019.”

RELATED LINKS: We have written extensively about a number of ammonia energy projects funded by ARPA-E. The program director of the REFUEL project, Grigorii Soloveichik, gave the keynote speech, Ammonia for Energy Storage and Delivery, at our 2016 Ammonia Energy Conference in Los Angeles, and a presentation at our 2017 conference in Minneapolis that addressed the question: Future of Ammonia Production: Improvement of Haber-Bosch Process or Electrochemical Synthesis?

SOURCE: ARPA-E’s announcement and the full Request For Information PDF are available through the ARPA-E Funding Opportunities website: Pre‐pilot and pilot R&D projects to scale, mature, and advance ARPA‐E funded technologies.