California’s Clean Energy Research Program Funds $1 Billion of Innovative Projects, Attracts $7.8 Billion in Private Investment

For Quick Launch: Might 19, 2022

Sacramento – As California’s premier public-interest clear vitality analysis and growth program enters its tenth 12 months and surpasses $1 billion in investments, a new report reveals how it’s serving to the state handle the local weather problem whereas attracting funding and creating jobs.

The California Power Fee’s Electrical Program Funding Cost (EPIC) program invests greater than $130 million yearly on initiatives that advance the environmental sustainability, reliability, and affordability of the electrical system.  

Since 2012, EPIC has supported greater than 430 initiatives with $1 billion in funding leading to $7.8 billion in non-public funding raised by awardees starting from main universities to small start-up corporations.

“The EPIC program represents one of the best of California’s entrepreneurial spirit by bringing clear vitality innovation from the lab to {the marketplace},” mentioned CEC Chair David Hochschild. “These applied sciences and instruments are serving to the state handle our most urgent local weather and vitality problem whereas benefitting electrical ratepayers.”

Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2022–23 finances proposal builds on EPIC’s success by together with $1 billion for grants to corporations headquartered in California. The grants can be used to develop and commercialize new expertise breakthroughs to assist the state obtain its local weather and clear vitality objectives.

Since its inception, the EPIC program has tackled a wide range of points to decarbonize {the electrical} system and handle the devastating results of local weather change. For instance, greater than $232 million has been authorised for initiatives that cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions (GHG) whereas enhancing the affordability, well being, and luxury of houses and companies.

One other instance is grid resiliency and security. Over the previous few years, hundreds of thousands of Californians have been impacted by excessive warmth and wildfires. Since 2012, greater than $182 million has been awarded to advance protected and resilient vitality techniques just like the microgrid on the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport in McKinleyville. That system makes use of photo voltaic panels to generate electrical energy and batteries to retailer vitality, permitting it to function independently of the bigger electrical grid and supply emergency providers even throughout energy outages.

The EPIC program is investing in innovation in nearly each sector of the state together with its burgeoning offshore wind business, the electrification of its transportation system, the event of long-duration batteries and the development of fresh vitality entrepreneurs. 

This system additionally helps the state’s farmers. California is the nation’s breadbasket, however shrinking freshwater reserves are more and more straining farmers, who should cope with rising water and vitality prices. EPIC funding helped San Mateo-based AgMonitor develop software program that helps farmers higher monitor and handle water use, cut back vitality prices, and enhance revenues.

Different EPIC-funded improvements profiled within the new report embrace:

• Clear photovoltaic window coating that may harness photo voltaic vitality from glass surfaces to generate electrical energy, all whereas remaining visibly indistinguishable from conventional home windows.
• Panels that use radiative cooling, rejecting warmth from rooftops out previous the ambiance and into the chilly expanses of area, turning the sky right into a renewable useful resource for cooling.
• 3D concrete printing manufacturing expertise that enables for on-site building of low-cost, ultra-tall wind turbine towers.
• A lithium-metal battery system that will increase vitality density as much as 48 p.c together with distinctive energy output and cycle life, which will increase the vary and capability for electrical automobiles and plane.

To make sure all Californians profit from the state’s vitality transformation, greater than two-thirds of EPIC expertise demonstration and deployment funds have been invested in initiatives with websites in low-income and deprived communities and California Native American tribes.  

Though the EPIC program is a decade previous, its influence will probably be felt lengthy into the long run. In 2020, it was renewed by the California Public Utilities Fee guaranteeing one other decade of help for the entrepreneurs and innovators shaping the state’s vitality future.

Be taught extra in regards to the EPIC program and the initiatives it helps by viewing the 2021 EPIC Highlights.

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In regards to the California Power Fee
The California Power Fee is main the state to a 100% clear vitality future. It has seven core tasks: creating renewable vitality, remodeling transportation, rising vitality effectivity, investing in vitality innovation, advancing state vitality coverage, certifying thermal energy crops, and getting ready for vitality emergencies.