National laboratories across the country, including Sandia National Laboratories, will use millions of dollars in federal funding to spur the deployment of projects related to renewable energy. 

The U.S Department of Energy announced the funding on Monday. The money is available through the Fiscal Year 2024 Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) Base Annual Appropriations Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness (CLIMR) Lab Call.

The TCF’s goal is to take technology that has been developed at the national laboratories and partner with private sectors to deploy it for broader use. 

While many people think that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, Vanessa Chan, chief commercialization officer for the U.S. Department of Energy and director of the Office of Technology Transitions, told an audience on Monday that it was actually Jonathan Swan. Edison, she said, merely commercialized the product.

Chan compared the national laboratories like Sandia to Swan. They’re the ones, she said, who are doing the research and development.

But, she said, it’s also important to have people like Edison who can take the product and commercialize it. 

The funding announced Monday will go to 50 different projects, including several that are led by Sandia.

Chan said the next 12 to 24 months are critical for addressing climate change. She said over the next year or two, investments need to be made to decarbonize.

“It’s really now. The time is now. With a trillion dollars, we have a lot of opportunities,” Chan said.

Chan described the funding announced on Monday as “private-sector led, government enabled.” She explained that the private sector will have to provide some money in the form of cost sharing.

Chan said Sandia received funding for three commercialization initiatives and she specifically highlighted one known as Achieving Net Zero Through Innovative Technology Commercialization, or ACTION.

She said ACTION is an example of collaboration. The Hopi and Navajo nations as well as tribal communities and colleges have partnered with Sandia on ACTION, as have other national laboratories and universities.

ACTION aims to build a “sustainable, replicable model” for commercializing technologies developed by the U.S. Department of Energy. To do this, Sandia and its partners will use DOE Net Zero sites as what the DOE describes as “proving grounds for innovative commercial deployments.”

In addition to the commercialization initiatives, Sandia was also awarded funding for other technology-specific partnership projects related to solar, wind and tidal energy.