Among the first beneficiaries of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) recently approved grant distribution for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awards are three innovative automotive industry organizations invested in potential future energy-efficient vehicle systems.
West Lafayette, Indiana’s Purdue University will receive $5 million to develop transmission options for large diesel truck engines; Danbury, Connecticut’s FuelCell Energy Inc. is slated for $3.1 million for engineering a reversible electrochemical cell to produce electricity using a ruthenium catalyst; and Pasadena, California’s SAFCell Inc. will obtain $3 million to build a streamlined system for generating hydrogen from ammonia.
Purdue’s grant is a NEXTCAR project — Next-Generation Energy Technologies for Connected and Autonomous On-Road Vehicles; FuelCell and SAFCell are undertaking their respective projects under Renewable Energy to Fuels Through Utilization of Energy-Dense Liquids (REFUEL) programs.
The apt acronyms apply to programs undertaken by recipients of DOE awards following the department’s prior commitment and subsequent review of taxpayer-supported grants to guarantee that the funding complies with the new administration’s policies.
According to the DOE, NEXTCAR programs are designed to use the growing complexities of current and future vehicles—both cars and trucks—to optimize energy usage, with the intention to decrease vehicular energy consumption by 20 percent. Similarly, REFUEL projects create high-energy liquid fuels from water, molecules from the air and renewably generated electricity.
Alerts Sign-up