The Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program plays an important role in maintaining America’s global leadership in energy technologies. The CleanTech Alliance Board of Directors is urging Congress to support our competitiveness and energy security by funding ARPA-E in the 2019 appropriations bill at least at $375 million level.
ARPA-E is a highly effective program which enjoys strong bipartisan congressional support. Since its inception, ARPA-E has successfully sponsored a dynamic range of research, including technologies with potentially profound benefits for the nation’s future energy security.
Modeled after the highly successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ARPA-E supports “high-risk, high-reward” research which has the potential to drastically alter how we make and use energy in the future. The program utilizes a unique and highly successful selection process to identify innovative technologies, pushes them to meet aggressive milestones and helps them to cross the valley of death so the private sector can then commercialize them. Despite being less than a decade old, ARPA-E is already fostering groundbreaking technological innovations in energy storage, advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and sequestration.
As of early 2017, 74 of more than 262 completed projects supported by ARPA-E have attracted over $1.8 billion in private sector follow-on funding, and 56 projects have formed new companies. The enthusiasm for ARPA-E’s vision and quality of work is evidenced by its ability to repeatedly draw more than 2,000 entrepreneurs, state and federal government officials, state and federal agencies and large numbers of investors to its annual Energy Innovation Summit.
The importance of U.S. leadership in energy technologies to our economic and energy security makes ARPA-E a tremendous competitive advantage. Stable and sustained funding is necessary to ensure this successful program continues to spearhead energy research.
In support of ARPA-E, the CleanTech Alliance is sending letters to our members of Congress urging funding at a level of $375 million or more.