OE is pursuing technologies to improve grid reliability, efficiency, flexibility, functionality, and security through its Research, Development, and Deployment work, making investments and sponsoring demonstrations aimed at bringing new and innovative technologies to maturity and assisting their transition to market. Key players, including federal and state government agencies, electric power companies, equipment manufacturers, systems developers, and customers, must collaborate to achieve a shared vision of the future, with complete awareness of each other’s roles and duties. OE provides leadership and continuity to connect these resources, promote research and development of new technologies, and put them on a route to commercialization as the key federal office with stewardship responsibility for electricity distribution.
To solve four significant difficulties over the next decade, aggressive, coordinated, and inventive efforts will be required:
- Population increase, adoption of more energy-efficient technology, dynamic economic conditions, and broader electrification, including potential mass markets for electric cars, drive demand changes.
- Changes in the nation’s generation portfolio’s source mix (such as renewables, nuclear energy, natural gas, and coal) and location (centralized, distributed, and off-shore) are driven by technological, market, and policy advances.
- Increasing supply and demand fluctuation and uncertainty, including the integration of fluctuating renewables, increased consumer participation, and the acceptance of new technologies and techniques.
- Increasing threats to the electric infrastructure’s reliability and security (such as more frequent and intense extreme weather events, cyber and physical attacks, and interdependencies with natural gas and water).
Because the electric grid is so important to successfully implementing an energy strategy across federal, state, and local jurisdictions, OE programs are collaborating with industry and other stakeholders, as well as other DOE offices, to improve key characteristics of the country’s electric transmission and distribution systems:
- Reliability refers to delivering high-quality power consistently and dependably.
- Flexibility refers to a company’s capacity to adapt to changing supply and demand patterns and new technology.
- Low losses in energy distribution and more efficient utilization of system assets are examples of efficiency.
- The ability to tolerate and quickly recover from interruptions while maintaining vital functions is known as resiliency.
- Affordability—more efficient asset deployment to meet system requirements while lowering expenses.
- Security refers to keeping system assets and critical functions safe from unauthorized or unwanted actors.
Technology Transfer and Development
Programs for Technology Development
One of the Department’s main goals is to foster technological advancement in numerous disciplines. The Department has supported technology development projects, including materials, devices, and processes. The program supports efforts to create technology in both advanced/emerging and traditional sectors/areas. Fresh ideas/concepts are also evaluated for their feasibility in becoming valuable technology/products as part of the program.
TDP’s mandate
Technology Development Programs (TDP) have the mission of turning proofs-of-concept for technologies, techniques, processes, and products into advanced prototypes for validation and demonstration in real-world settings. Commercialization of these innovations requires additional evaluation/incubation, which the Technology Development Programme does not cover. The host institutions should ideally be responsible for transferring project-developed technologies to industry. Proposals for additional R&D over current technology are also considered for funding. As part of a technology development project, projects including the design and development of software/IT as needed for products and processes will be considered. The Program’s scope does not include pure software development. There are many types of Tech that you should aware of.