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    1. Energy Efficiency

    U.S-Israeli BIRD Energy Collaboration Investing $9.75M in Binational Clean Energy

    Dec. 18, 2023
    The projects focus on agrivoltaics, battery technology, CO2 reduction, energy efficiency, solar energy, and energy storage.
    Image source BIRD Foundation
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    The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Israel’s Ministry of Energy (MoE), and the Israel Innovation Authority has approved nine clean energy projects worth $27 million, including $9.75 million in cost-share funding, under the Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Energy program.
    The projects focusing on agrivoltaics, battery technology, CO2 reduction, energy efficiency, solar energy, and energy storage are as follows:

    • Bar Ilan R&D Company (Ramat Gan, Israel), the technology transfer office for Bar Ilan University, and Forge Nano (Thornton, CO) to develop advanced flexible thin film coatings by Molecular Layer Deposition for improved high-capacity anodes.
    • SolarPaint (Yokneam Illit, Israel) and Lippert Components (Elkhart, IN) to develop and produce a unique solar awning - a fully flexible and rollable solution suitable for RVs, residential balconies, marine vehicles, and more.
    • Groundwork BioAg (Moshav Mazor, Israel) and Verdesian Life Sciences U.S. (Cary, NC) to collaborate on developing innovative solutions to enhance soil carbon sequestration and provide agricultural benefits by integrating mycorrhiza species, strains, and nitrogen-fixing bacteria targeting corn and soybean crops.
    • CarbonBlue (Haifa, Israel) and Energy & Environmental Research Center (Grand Forks, ND) to scale up and commercialize ocean-based carbon dioxide removal technology for the desalination industry.
    • Boson Energy Israel (Modi'in, Israel) and Drexel University, Nyheim Plasma Institute (Camden, NJ) to develop a tar cracking system for gasification projects.
    • PowerPlug (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Cirrus Nexus (New York, NY) to develop an AI-driven SaaS-based platform for monitoring, analyzing, and reducing the IT carbon footprint across the entire IT landscape: on-premise IT devices, on-premise data centers, and cloud resources.
    • Air Vev (Pardes Hanna, Israel) and Nidec Motor Corporation (Elkhart, IN) to develop an electric motor tailored for smaller eVTOL aircraft.
    • Trigo Solar (Sde Hemed, Israel) and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Sponsored Research Services (College Station, TX) to demonstrate a water-energy agri-voltaic mounting system able to collect, divert, and store rainwater and irrigate cultivated rows of rainfed row crops.
    • Windstore (Tel Mond, Israel) and NPS Solutions (Darien, CT) to develop a compress AI energy storage solution incorporating win turbine towers.

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    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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    Image credit Solvay Chemicals
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