The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded USD 650,000 to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for two floating wind demonstration and testing projects.
The funds have been allocated through DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), which requires a 50 per cent match of non-federal funds from private partners.
NREL has been awarded USD 500,000 for a project aimed at demonstrating NREL modelling capability to design next-generation floating wind turbines, where its partner from the private sector is Stiesdal LLC.
For a model testing of an innovative floating wind system, NREL is getting USD 150,000 and, according to available information, there are no private partners on this project.
The FY 2018 TCF funding, for which DOE received more than 100 applications, will support 64 projects with over USD 20 million in total.
“The Department of Energy is one of the largest supporters of technology transfer within the federal government. By connecting innovators at our national labs with entrepreneurs in the private sector, DOE is breaking down barriers and finding the nexus between ingenuity and opportunity,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry . “The projects announced today will further strengthen those efforts across a broad spectrum of energy technologies and advance DOE’s important mission of technology transfer.”