Small businesses make a big impact on America’s economy, adding more than 1 million employees last year, and are central to developing the new clean energy technologies that are needed to cut carbon pollution and improve the environment. However, small business entrepreneurs often lack the resources they need to rapidly move their innovative new ideas from the laboratory bench to the marketplace.

Today, during the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative’s Southeast Regional Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, the Energy Department will announce the National Laboratories that will be taking the lead in implementing a new Small Business Vouchers Pilot, a public-private partnership that will connect clean energy innovators across the country with the top-notch scientists, engineers and world-class facilities at our National Labs.

This effort, which is part of my office’s larger Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Lab Impact Initiative, will help small businesses bring next-generation clean energy technologies to the market more quickly — unleashing the vast science and engineering capabilities of the Energy Department’s National Labs to solve the small businesses’ most pressing challenges.

Today, we will announce the five laboratories that have been competitively selected to be lead labs for the $20 million pilot, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory ($5.6 million), National Renewable Energy Laboratory ($4.9 million), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ($4.2 million), Sandia National Laboratories ($2.8 million), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ($2.7 million).

With this funding, in total, these labs will be providing vouchers starting later this summer to more than 100 small businesses, so they can access lab expertise and tools that can help them introduce new products, expand their business and grow the clean energy sector.

The labs chosen will lead in these specific clean energy technologies: advanced manufacturing, buildings, vehicles, wind, water, bioenergy, fuel cells, geothermal and solar. In addition to providing vouchers to small businesses, lead labs will also be responsible for outreach, merit review coordination and match making. Other labs can also fulfill vouchers with small businesses. The lead labs will also be encouraged to expand their core competencies and cast a wide net into the small business community.

Here’s how the pilot will work:

• Later this summer, the Energy Department will launch the Small Business Central Assistance Platform, a web-based tool that will be used to exchange information between the labs and small businesses.
• This platform will be used to market the labs’ core capabilities in the topic areas of interest and will be used to accept applications from small businesses who want to participate in the program.
• Individual vouchers will range from $50,000 to $300,000 per clean energy small business and can be used to initiate collaborative research projects or to access technical assistance with labs.
• Three cycles of competitions will be offered to interested small businesses in the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years.
• Small business leaders interested in pursuing a voucher may reach participating labs through our Lab Impact Initiative:EERELabImpact@ee.doe.gov.

America is competing to win the global clean energy race. The National Labs, our science and engineering powerhouses, are pivotal national resources for small and large companies commercializing clean energy products and technologies. New kinds of public-private partnerships, like the Small Business Vouchers Pilot, will help our nation cross the finish line first and lead on clean energy.