Vote for America’s Top Energy Innovator

January 30th, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is planning to name America’s Next Top Energy Innovator in February. But guess what—it’s looking for your opinion on this matter first! It’s got a list of 14 breakthrough technologies that you can vote on now online.

Each of the 14 technologies “represents a partnership between a start-up company and a DOE national laboratory.”

One such laboratory, for example, is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Has 3 Finalists

“Technologies from the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are being used by three of the nominees, helping move the laboratory’s research and development to the private sector,” NREL notes. “Among the three innovators working with NREL are a radical new way of delivering air conditioning, a ‘smart window’ that saves energy, and a breakthrough coating that signals that there is a hydrogen or hazardous gas leak.”

“NREL has a robust technology transfer program that helps our innovations get to market across a broad spectrum of renewable energy and energy efficiency domains,” Bill Farris, NREL’s Vice President for Commercialization and Technology Transfer, said. “NREL conducts the research necessary to create new innovations but we rely on partners to commercialize those innovations. We are excited to see three of our partners make into the America’s Next Top Energy Innovator competition.”

Check out more on the NREL contestants via the link above.

Vote Today!

You can vote up until 6:59 a.m. Mountain Standard Time (8:59 a.m. EST) on Feb. 6.

You can view technologies and start-up profiles on the voting page.

“The winner – selected based on the public vote and expert review – will be featured at the premier gathering of clean energy investors and innovators around the country, the 2012 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, at the end of February.”

Image: screenshot of DOE voting page

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Tags: Department Of Energy, DOE, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, top innovator, top innovator challenge

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Muchos Huevos

Those projects are ok, however…….Mr Tesla’s Power Tower was not bad 100 years ago, just because they could not think charging us a flat monthly fee, the project had to be canceled, is there an engeneer autthere able to reproduce it?? Not to mention his electric vehicle??