Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E)

Based on a 2005 recommendation by the National Academies, Congress in 2007 established the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), inspired by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). ARPA-E is an agency within the DOE that advances early-stage, high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that would otherwise not attract private financing. ARPA-E is structured to be institutionally independent and structurally flexible, which means it is able to disburse and withdraw funds from projects relatively quickly, in line with the short-term (three-year programmes) nature of funding that the agency was meant to support. Since 2009, when ARPA-E first received funding, it has provided around USD 2.6 billion in RD&D funding to over 1,590 energy technology projects which have led to the formation of 157 companies and 1,166 patents in focus areas like new wind turbine designs, transportation fuels made from bacteria and innovative energy storage solutions.To identify priority topics and potential recipients of grants, ARPA-E is systematic: it issues five to ten calls each year for new technology areas and around every three years it also issues open calls and unrestricted “special project” portfolios. It has a distinctive approach to selecting technology areas that are underexplored but have potential strategic importance to the future US energy system. Structured scoping exercises are used to learn the state-of-the-art from external experts, usually through a public request for information. Start-ups have the opportunity to provide input and contribute to how the calls are defined to attract a range of solutions at different levels of maturity.

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