Nanowerk.com reported that the Clean Energy Alliance, the national association of clean energy business incubators, announced the formation of the Department of Energy Small Business and Clean Energy Alliance Partnership. The announcement was made today at the National Renewable Energy Lab’s 23rd Industry Growth Forum.

With the support of a $1.2 million grant of Recovery Act funds, the CEA, through its nationwide incubator membership, will provide a complete range of services to U.S. small businesses that are developing and pursuing the commercialization of clean energy technologies. The services will include technical support, business planning, finance and banking, legal and accounting, marketing, communications, outreach, networking and accessing capital.

Companies identified by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy will be screened and matched with CEA member incubators. Incubators accepting companies into their programs will receive financial support from the grant funds. After one year, the results will be evaluated with the expectation that progress towards commercialization will be evident, similar to what has been achieved by CEA members over the past decade. CEA will connect selected small businesses to potential private and strategic investors.

“We are thrilled to work with the Department of Energy in this manner, and expect to demonstrate the value of utilizing incubators as a primary route to commercialization for entrepreneurial companies in the clean energy technology development space,” says James Groelinger, CEA’s executive director. “As a result of this program, cross-fertilization of best practices and the implementation of novel enhancements will enable us to significantly advance the state of the art in clean energy technology commercialization.”

Groelinger said the CEA is aiming to incubate up to 75 companies, with a wide range of technologies, in this partnership. Preference will be given to companies that received SBIR Phase I support and that applied for, but did not receive, SBIR Phase II support.

Some past posts about SBIR/STTR programs include the following:

DOE announces $57M in new SBIR/STTR programs, $9.6M for ‘transformational energy’

DOE announces availability of $30M for small business materials-oriented tech commercialization

$60M available for DOE SBIR program for clean energy tech

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