News

Nathan Phillips is a meter-reader for the 21st century.

The College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of geography and environment recently piled into a Nissan Murano with collaborators Bob Ackley and Eric Crosson and rambled through the streets of greater Boston to hunt for natural gas leaks. With the help of a strange-looking vacuum device attached to the car just below the rear bumper, the three have found geysers of gas gushing invisibly from underground pipes corroded by age. The leaks, Phillips says, contribute to global warming, could create explosions in some extreme cases, have killed or damaged up to 10,000 trees in Massachusetts (a disputed matter under litigation), and shaft rate-paying gas customers who must pick up the tab for wasted gas.

The vacuum sniffs up molecules into a suitcase-sized machine in the hatch called a cavity ringdown analyzer, where a laser beam ricochets off mirrors and through the collected particles. The more natural gas collected, the more the laser diminishes. When the machine detects a leak, numerical values on a display screen indicate how much gas is spurting; if there are multiple leaks, the display “looks like a stock market index during a busy day,” says Phillips. The machine instantly spits out the leaks’ locations and shows them on Google Earth maps as shafts of green, punching skyward like a light show.

The Google Earth image above shows shafts of bright green indicating natural gas leaking around BU’s Charles River Campus. If there are multiple leaks, the display “looks like a stock market index during a busy day,” says Nathan Phillips. Photo courtesy of Nathan Phillips and Picarro, Inc.

There are a lot of leaks. One utility, National Grid, counts 14,000 in its system, which serves half of the Bay State, while Ackley, president of Gas Safety USA, a Massachusetts leak-detection company, puts the figure for all leaks at up to 30,000. Utilities reported 13.5 million cubic feet of gas lost from leaks throughout Massachusetts in 2009, an amount that is surely an undercount, according to the federal government, which collects the data.

In May, Phillips and company found a leak in Newton, Mass., that was spewing 400 cubic feet of gas per day. “The average household uses about 200 cubic feet per day,” says Crosson, whose California company, Picarro, makes the analyzer. “So that leak was equivalent to two households opening up their gas stoves and heater without igniting them.”

The perils and price of leaking gas are the subject of a paper that Phillips, Crosson, and Ackley presented at a spring conference sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Their research suggests that 7 percent to 15 percent of manmade methane (the main component of natural gas) in the atmosphere comes from these urban emissions. And that’s a problem: methane is a greenhouse gas that according to the United Nations is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Then there’s the money. The eight billion cubic feet of gas vented in Massachusetts in 2005 (that’s leaks plus gas unaccounted for because of other factors) was worth $41 million, and that annual leak of gas and dollars continues. Gas customers pay a monthly maintenance charge already, in addition to being charged for the gas that leaks away, says Ackley, who for years worked to detect leaks for National Grid and other utilities. He estimates that leaks could add $40 a year to the average Bay State residential gas bill.

Leaking gas also kills or damages millions of dollars worth of urban trees—between $15 million and $25 million just in the commonwealth alone, says Ackley, who with Jan Schlichtmann (the lawyer hero of the book and film A Civil Action) runs the Massachusetts Public Shade Tree Trust, which seeks damages from utilities for affected municipalities.

Nathan Phillips (left) and Eric Crosson check a display screen indicating the extent of a natural gas leak. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Brookline is suing National Grid, which serves 1.2 million customers there and throughout Massachusetts, for damages to town trees allegedly caused by gas. Company spokesman David Graves says he can’t comment on pending litigation, but he does say that there is no scientific evidence supporting claims that underground gas leaks cause widespread damage to trees. “We work with communities on individual cases where they believe gas may have damaged a tree,” he says. “If we can prove gas is responsible, we replace the tree at our cost.”

Graves says his company takes the leaks issue very seriously and responds to every reported odor of gas. “We are in complete compliance with state and federal standards in leak management,” 
he says.

Phillips says utilities triage their repairs to remedy catastrophic leaks, such as the one that occurred near San Francisco last year, when a gas transmitting line exploded, killing four and torching dozens of homes. He found one leak in West Newton with methane levels that would rate as potentially explosive.

By contrast, Phillips says, slower street-level leaks are bottom-tier concerns for repair, even though pedestrians occasionally can smell the gas.

Ackley tracked gas leaks for years before teaming with Phillips, whom he met by chance. Walking with his toddler son in their Newton neighborhood, Phillips spied Ackley in a yard wielding a strange handheld device. Curious, he asked Ackley what he was doing.

Picarro’s machine has revolutionized the labor of leak detection since Phillips and Ackley began using it last winter. “I can find the leaks with the old-school equipment we’ve been using in the gas industry for years,” says Ackley, “but this equipment is much more sensitive, and it has the ability to map out on GPS, right on a computer screen,” a leak’s location, “and also quantify the gas a little bit better.” The machine can sense leaks at any car speed, Crosson adds. “I’ve done it doing 65 miles an hour.”

So far, Crosson, Phillips, and Ackley have surveyed only a small percentage of Boston streets, and they plan to publish more comprehensive leak data from the city.

ByteLight one of seven innovative cleantech companies selected for technical development, entrepreneurial advisory and incubation services

BOSTON, MA – October 5th, 2011: ByteLight has been selected for funded services through U-Launch, a US Department of Energy-funded grant-based award program that provides funded services to promising clean energy start-ups. These grant awards were offered as part of the Cleantech Open Northeast business competition. The grants will be used to assist seven Boston-area companies, including ByteLight in validating, developing and deploying innovative cleantech solutions.

ByteLight is a young BU spinoff that is developing indoor navigation, location based advertising, and interactive shopping experiences for retail spaces. GPS has played a huge role in the recent mobile device revolution, spawning many companies including FourSquare, ShopKick, SCVNGR, and Gowalla. There are a variety of competing technologies that are trying to solve the indoor positioning problem including Wi-Fi triangulation, dead reckoning, and ultrasound, however these solutions have struggled to reliably achieve sub-meter accuracies. In response, ByteLight is developing a system to turn overhead LED lights into positioning beacons used for locating smartphones indoors.

“Earlier this year, U-Launch committed to providing a minimum of $20,000 in funded services to Cleantech Open Northeast Region semifinalists,” said Eric Graham, Director of Fraunhofer CSE’s TechBridge program and administrator of U-Launch.  “But given the strong field of competitors participating in this year’s competition, we felt compelled to exceed our commitment and have awarded $89,000 in total services to seven highly qualified companies.”

“As a partner in U-Launch the MassCEC is extremely pleased with the level of competition in this year’s Cleantech Open Northeast competition,” added Patrick Cloney, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. “It’s exciting for us to support innovative cleantech companies with U-Launch funded service awards.”

“The partnership between U-Launch and the Cleantech Open is a perfect example of the kind of collaborations necessary to further innovation in clean energy,” said Peter Rothstein, President of the New England Clean Energy Council. “New England’s cleantech cluster is rich and diverse, and connecting divergent programs and resources is a top priority.”

The U-Launch program provides grants that are comprised of funded services tailored to enhance the future market and funding potential of the individual awardee, and can include:

• Technical services provided by Fraunhofer TechBridge, including prototype development assistance, technology validation and technology feasibility studies,
• Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) services provided by the New England Clean Energy Council, including business plan development, go-to-market strategy creation, capital requirements planning, and fund-support.
• Incubation services supplied through the ACTIONetwork, including subsidized space and access to incubator business support services.

These awards were made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy as part of its Innovation Ecosystem Development Initiative, administered by the Commercialization and Deployment Team. The purpose of the Innovation Ecosystems is to accelerate the commercialization of clean energy technologies from US university laboratories into the marketplace.

About the Cleantech Open

The Cleantech Open runs the world’s largest cleantech accelerator. Its mission is to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental and economic challenges. A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, the Cleantech Open provides the infrastructure, expertise and strategic relationships that turn clever ideas into successful global cleantech companies. Since 2006, through its one-of-a-kind annual business competition and mentorship program, the Cleantech Open has enabled hundreds of clean-technology startups to bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition, helped alumni contestants raise over $300M, and created an estimated 2,500 green-collar jobs. Fueled by a global network of more than 1,000 volunteers and sponsors, the Cleantech Open unites the public and private sectors in a shared vision for making America’s cleantech sector a thriving economic engine. For more information, visit www.cleantechopen.org, or follow Cleantech Open on Twitter and Facebook.

About U-Launch

U-Launch was founded in 2010 with the aim of supporting clean energy technologies in their transition from the laboratory to the market, and is partially funded by a three-year, $1.1M award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Innovation Ecosystem Development Initiative. The program is administered by four leading New England cleantech organizations: the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE), the New England Clean Energy Foundation (NECEF), the Association of CleanTech Incubators of New England (ACTION) and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC). Each member of the U-Launch team provides critical early-stage resources for start-ups and spinouts. U-Launch grants are awarded to high-potential technologies, many of which are spun out of New England-based research universities. Grants are comprised of funded services tailored to enhance the future market and funding potential of the individual awardee, and can include business model review or development, market analysis, technical feasibility studies, prototype development assistance, technology validation, executive-in-residence guidance, and incubation space.

For more information on the U-Launch partners, visit:

MassCEC – www.masscec.com | Twitter

NECEF – www.cleanenergycouncil.org/foundation | Twitter

Fraunhofer CSE – www.cse.fraunhofer.org | Twitter

ACTION – www.innovativeaction.org

There is nothing enjoyable about driving around a parking lot looking for an empty space.

“Did you know that 30% of vehicles on the road in any major city downtown are cruising for a parking spot?” asked Professor Christos Cassandras (ECE, SE). “And that it takes the average driver 7.8 minutes to find a parking spot?”

What if you knew exactly which spot was open before you even entered a lot?

Cassandras and systems engineering graduate student, Yanfeng Geng, are developing a smart parking application that will allow drivers to reserve and pay for spaces using their smart phones – and their research was recently featured on New England Cable News (NECN).

Watch the NECN video.

The new application can reduce the amount of gas wasted, lessen air pollution and traffic congestion, and save drivers some of their sanity.

“Not only are these people frustrated, but they actually obstruct everybody else,” recently told NECN.

If the application works as well on the streets as in this garage, Cassandras believes that parking may not be such a problem in the future for Boston drivers.

Read more about Smart Parking research in BU Today.

-Samantha Gordon (COM ’12)

The failure of clean energy efforts in the U.S. comes not from a lack of technology innovations, but from the lack of their widespread adoption. Rather than singling out specific companies or industries, our clean energy efforts should focus on building a smarter electricity system, one in which consumers and producers base their decisions on timely information that reflect true costs. Such a system will accelerate the adoption of clean energy by bridging information gaps that are dissuading investments and inhibiting energy-saving behavior.Once businesses and individuals can see what drives up their electric bills, a wide range of new energy business models will emerge.

The sources of generating electricity, hence the environmental impact and costs, change often and unpredictably. In the current system this is opaque to retail users. By making prices readily visible, smart electricity systems will reduce energy use. In fact, some European countries already have appliances that receive pricing information from the grid and are programmed to run during cheaper times. Having a smart grid is also essential in integrating renewable sources of energy like solar and wind by better managing their intermittent availability. Such a system is also imperative for the electrification of the transportation sector that needs to coordinate charging batteries with availability of cheap and clean sources of power. Because electricity and the transportation sector currently consume two-thirds of our fossil fuel use, these changes would have an enormous impact.

With the smart electricity infrastructure in place, a wide range of new energy business models will emerge. For example, the new information will enable cheaper and better audits of buildings’ energy use, which would help to tailor efficiency improvements.

As with the highway system, by investing public resources on a smart electricity infrastructure, we can create a truly transformative environment in complementary sectors and can take the U.S. to a leadership position in clean energy.

Join Room for Debate on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate.

Aaron Gannick of Bytelight was accepted to  Startup Leadership Program for 2011, and has also made it to the semi finals for IBM’s Smartcamp taking place in Istanbul, Turkey.

In August, Professor Christos Cassandras (ECE, SE), systems engineering graduate student Yanfeng Geng and other SE graduate students completed their first live test of a preliminary version of a smart parking system in the lower level of the 730 Commonwealth Avenue garage beneath 15 Saint Mary's Street. A ceiling-mounted, computer-linked sensor network (see bottom image) continuously monitored parking spot activity and incoming reservation requests. Before entering the garage, a smartphone-equipped driver submitted an ID number and reservation request through a website (see top image). After validating the ID, the system updated a light indicator on the spot (and on a map displayed on the website) from green (unoccupied) to yellow (reserved), and, when the driver parked, to red (occupied). Once the driver departed, the system switched the light back to green and charged a parking fee to the driver's account. (Images courtesy of BU Photo.)

Imagine, just before your morning commute, you enter your office location and a price range into a GPS or mobile device, and it returns directions to the vacant, appropriately priced parking spot that’s closest to your office, reserved just for you.

This “smart parking” scenario may be a click away, thanks to technology that Professor Christos Cassandras (ECE, SE) and systems engineering graduate student Yanfeng Geng are developing. In early August, the research team completed their first live test of a preliminary version of a smart parking system in the lower level of the 730 Commonwealth Avenue garage beneath 15 Saint Mary’s Street.

In the test, a ceiling-mounted, computer-linked sensor network continuously monitored parking spot activity and incoming reservation requests. Before entering the garage, a smartphone-equipped driver submitted an ID number and reservation request through a website. After validating the ID, the system updated a light indicator on the spot (and on a map displayed on the website) from green (unoccupied) to yellow (reserved), and, when the driver parked, to red (occupied). Once the driver departed, the system switched the light back to green and charged a parking fee to the driver’s account.

From the moment he entered the garage, the driver navigated his way to his designated spot in only about five seconds.

“In any major city center, about 30 percent of cars are cruising around looking for parking, wasting time—an average of 7.8 minutes, according to one estimate—and gas, and increasing air pollution and traffic congestion,” said Cassandras. “Our system could reduce all those problems and give cities a powerful traffic management tool.”

The project is funded as part of a National Science Foundation grant aimed at developing systems that reconfigure themselves in response to unexpected events and fast-changing conditions. The BU team is one of five pursuing ways to create “smart cities” that exploit ubiquitous wireless networking; collect information about the environment from distributed sensors; make optimal decisions about transportation, communication, power use and other complexities of urban life; and invoke actuators to execute those decisions. Cassandras and Geng’s first paper on their project, slated to appear in Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control, was selected as one of four finalists for the September conference’s Best Student Paper Award.
By empowering drivers to reserve parking spots remotely, the research team’s technology improves upon current “parking guidance” electronic display technology, which typically provides only parking information, such as the number of available parking spots at a nearby lot.

“The reservation component is critical as it overcomes the dilemma of whether or not to try to find a better spot, and eliminates chasing of the same spot by multiple drivers, which would create additional congestion and waste,” said Jonathan J. Jensen, director of business development at BU’s Technology Development office. “This type of system, once implemented, could also create a marketplace for parking spaces not feasible today including dynamic pricing and the ability to sell or reserve individual private parking spaces.”

While parking spots in the live test relied on ultrasound to determine their status, future garage parking spots may be equipped with technology that mechanically prevents access to vehicles without the proper ID. The researchers ultimately envision an intelligent, citywide GPS system that reserves the nearest available parking spot within a specified price range. Managing hundreds of simultaneous requests for vacant parking spots throughout a city, it would direct subscribers from their present location to the closest (and if desired, cheapest) parking spot to their destination.

Having filed a provisional patent application—the first step in the patenting process—for their smart parking technology, the research team is exploring commercialization opportunities with BU’s Technology Development Office and participating in BU’s Sustainable Neighborhood Living Laboratory (SNLL), an effort to improve the sustainability and quality of life of Boston neighborhoods such as the Back Bay.

“The SNLL will provide us with a testbed to demonstrate and test the technology in a real-world setting,” said Jensen. “A realistic testbed will accelerate development of the technology and help us to attract partners that can eventually bring the technology to market.”

http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=666&id=58266

As use of methane increases, old pipes pose risks, group says; utility companies see no danger

August 17, 2011|By Neena Satija, Globe Correspondent

When Nathan Phillips started driving the streets of Boston looking for natural gas leaks, he was stunned to find they numbered in the thousands.

The Boston University associate professor of geography and the environment wanted to document the extent of leaks because of concerns that the gas could harm trees and add to greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Then he found a leak that posed a more immediate danger, and it was near his home.

Phillips found the leak at a manhole in front of the West Newton Cinema. Twice in the past month, he detected the levels of methane in the atmosphere there to be about 6 percent, which regulators and gas companies consider a potential explosion hazard.

“I tended to downplay’’ the explosion risk of gas leaks at first, said Phillips. “But now that I have seen with my own eyes at least one case … I do think that is actually part of the overall problem now.’’

Natural gas is one of the fastest growing forms of energy in the United States, embraced as an abundant resource and a better alternative to coal-fired power plants, which emit far more greenhouse gases. But aging pipelines in Massachusetts that deliver natural gas to more than 1.2 million homes have more than 21,000 leaks, according to gas company records.

While gas companies and regulators say most leaks pose no immediate danger and do not need to be repaired, some legislators and former gas company workers disagree. Minor, Grade 3 leaks not only harm the environment, they say, but if not properly monitored, they can become Grade 1 leaks that are an immediate hazard. The West Newton leak is one example.

Representative Lori Ehrlich, a Democrat from Marblehead, has proposed legislation calling for all the leaks to be repaired within three years, regardless of how they are labeled.

“It’s a waste of money, a waste of a natural resource, and there’s public safety hazards as well,’’ said Ehrlich, who started looking into the issue after former gas workers and environmental activists contacted her two years ago with their concerns.

The legislation, which has nearly 40 cosponsors, was heard by the Joint Committee on Telecommunications and Energy in June, but has not received a vote.

Phillips detects gas leaks using a new device called a cavity ring-down spectrometer, which he puts in the trunk of his car so he can take measurements as he drives.

He has been surprised at how leaky the Boston area is, and he estimates that he has only explored about 1 percent of its streets.

“Cambridge Street between Storrow Drive and Government Center: very leaky,’’ he said. “Harvard Street in Brookline between Commonwealth Avenue and Coolidge Corner is also very leaky… . Beacon Street from Coolidge Corner out through Newton to Newton Center, that’s very leaky.’’

Massachusetts gas companies reported that 8.2 billon cubic feet of natural gas was unaccounted for in 2007. Phillips calculates that is the equivalent of about 4 to 5 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts that year, since methane’s contribution to global warming is 25 times greater than the same amount of carbon dioxide.

Gas companies and the state Department of Public Utilities acknowledge that there is a problem with the state’s aging gas infrastructure that poses environmental concerns, but say there is no safety hazard.

“We feel that we operate a very safe system,’’ said David Graves, spokesman for National Grid, the largest gas company in Massachusetts. “We are very cognizant of the need to maintain public safety, and we feel that we do that on a regular basis.’’

But Mark McDonald, a former gas leak investigator for the company who worked with Ehrlich on the proposed legislation, contends that most companies do not regularly monitor gas leaks.

While he was out with a Globe reporter last month, McDonald’s combustible gas indicator, the same equipment that gas companies use, beeped above a manhole beside Las Americas Market on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester. The level of gas in the air was 8 percent; between 4 and 14 percent is considered an explosion hazard.

As McDonald double-checked the reading, a young man in a red T-shirt lit a cigarette nearby. If he had done so about 10 feet to his left, where the methane levels were higher, the ignition could have caused a blast.

The leak had been initially reported in December 2009 and was classified as Grade 3. Another Grade 3 leak across the street was first reported in 1995.

“It’s just ridiculous that these leaks have been leaking that long,’’ said McDonald, president of the New England Gas Workers’ Association, a group of gas workers and industry-related partners across the region that advocates for tougher utility regulations.

Asked about minor leaks that become more dangerous, Graves said Grade 1 leaks are fixed immediately. A National Grid van arrived 15 minutes after the leak on Blue Hill Avenue was called in and confirmed McDonald’s finding.

“The last time we checked it may well have been a Grade 3, and it may have accelerated to a Grade 1,’’ Graves said. “It could have been a Grade 3 yesterday and gone to a Grade 1 today.’’

National Grid said it checks Grade 3 leaks once a year.

Ehrlich and McDonald’s push for gas companies to fix all leaks within three years has met resistance from gas companies, which say such a requirement would create an unnecessary burden on their employees and raise rates for customers.

Instead, they are replacing cast-iron pipelines, particularly susceptible to corrosion and cracking in cold weather, with the help of money from the Department of Public Utilities.

“I believe it would be quite expensive’’ to replace all the Grade 3 leaks, said Ann G. Berwick, chairwoman of the DPU. “We’re inevitably balancing cost to rate-payers and wanting to keep utility rates down.’’

National Grid is on track to replace 140 miles of cast iron gas mains this year, said Graves. At that rate, it would take more than 30 years for all the aging pipeline to be replaced.

Ehrlich said laws she has proposed do not interfere with replacement programs like National Grid’s.

“When they go in and replace the oldest pipes, they’re going to get a lot of the leaks anyhow,’’ she said. “But there’s plenty more throughout the system.’’

Neena Satija can be reached at nsatija@globe.com.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-17/news/29897396_1_gas-leaks-natural-gas-gas-companies

Computer modeling is further evidence of human influence

For years now, environmental scientists have puzzled over a peculiarity of global warming: From 1998 to 2008, while the production of warming greenhouse gases increased, the temperature of the earth’s surface didn’t budge. Now Robert Kaufmann, a College of Arts & Sciences professor and chair of the department of geography & environment, has found an explanation: sulfur particles, emitted mainly from coal-burning power plants in Asia, have reflected so much solar energy away from the earth that they mitigated the warming influence of the greenhouse gases.

Working with researchers from the University of Turku in Finland and from Harvard, Kaufmann analyzed data that might influence the earth’s surface temperature collected between 1998 and 2008, including such things as greenhouse gas emissions, incoming radiation from the sun, sulfur pollution, and El Niño and La Niña warming and cooling patterns. The researchers plugged their data into a computer model, and found that it replicated the actual conditions: even while carbon dioxide increased, the surface temperature remained steady.

“We showed that a model based on the theory of anthropogenic climate change could be explained by the observed temperatures between 1999 and 2008,” says Kaufmann. “It’s a simple and elegant test of the hypothesis.”

The bad news, says Kaufmann, is that his scientific evidence that climate change is indeed influenced by human activities was “trashed by Rush Limbaugh,” whose remarks precipitated a rash of hate mail sent to Kaufmann.

What happens next, says Kaufmann, is good news and bad news. China, which doubled its coal consumption in just four years in the early 2000s, is now using scrubbers to reduce sulfur emissions, a move that will clean up the atmosphere but may also lead to a period of rapid warming.

The study was published in the July 5th edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Art Jahnke can be reached at jahnke@bu.edu.

http://www.bu.edu/today/node/13275

Competitions Will Encourage Entrepreneurship in Clean Energy Nationwide

July 21, 2011

As part of the Obama Administration’s effort to support and empower the next generation of American clean energy entrepreneurs, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced $2 million in available funding for the National University Clean Energy Business Challenge. This nationwide initiative will create a network of regional student-focused clean energy business creation competitions whose winners will compete for a National Grand Prize at a completion held at the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. in early summer 2012. The funding will support up to six regional competitions that will inspire, mentor, and train students from across the country to develop successful business plans to create a new generation of American clean energy companies. These regional competitions will take place before May 1, 2012. This national initiative will enable student participants to gain the skills required to build new businesses and transform promising innovative energy technologies from U.S. universities and national laboratories into innovative new energy products that will to solve our nation’s energy challenges, spur business creation, create American jobs, and boost American competitiveness.

“Fostering innovation at America’s universities and producing our nation’s next generation of clean energy entrepreneurs is vital to ensuring our nation’s competiveness in the clean energy economy of tomorrow,” said Secretary Chu. “This investment will train a new generation of scientific and technical leaders and support the Administration’s continued effort to ensure that America has the workforce we need to secure our energy future, create jobs here at home, and win the future.”

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will consider applications that propose annual U.S. university-based business creation competitions for student entrepreneurs with business ideas in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Student teams that participate in the competitions will work with experienced mentors from the energy industry and start up community, along with university and national lab-based researchers, to develop creative business plans for transforming ground-breaking energy technologies into high impact market solutions. The FOA has been posted to FedConnect under the reference number “DE-FOA-0000570.” Applications are due on August 22, 2011. Selections are expected to be made before the end of September 2011.

This initiative, facilitated by the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), aims to increase the number and quality of start-up businesses created with university-based energy technologies and to promote a new generation of energy entrepreneurs. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil.

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=576