The Department of Energy (DOE) announced the Fiscal Year 2021 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I Release II Awards. Among DOE’s Phase I SBIR awards were an unprecedented 11 Office of Electricity-funded projects totaling more than $2.205 million. These projects will be addressing the following overarching sub-topics:

Advanced Manufactured High Frequency Link Transformers for Next Generation Grid-tied Energy Storage Power Conversion Systems – To date, energy storage systems employ line frequency transformers for voltage matching at the point of common coupling and galvanic isolation. However, these transformers can have a large footprint, lossy, noisy, and heavy, which can limit high density power conversion designs. Recently, there has been interest in high-frequency link converters to reduce the size of the transformer. The magnetic cores utilized in such systems are critical for proper operation and when paired with wide bandgap semiconductors can become the bottleneck for high power throughput, particularly given the limitations of the current available materials.  Additionally, even with the significantly lower inductance requirements at high frequency, the current materials demand that the transformer take up a disproportionately large piece of the power electronics footprint and cost. Added flexibility and agility in PCS design and deployment could be realized through advanced manufactured transformer and inductor cores. The final design should show a significant increase in performance, cost reduction, and decrease in footprint compared to a traditional grid-tied power conversion design connected to line frequency transformer. Under this sub-topic, DOE’s Office of Electricity (OE) selected the following businesses and projects:

  • Foli Research, LLC (Berkeley, CA) – “Additive Manufacturing of High Frequency Transformers Using Coherent Wire Placement”
  • Mallika Ashwin Maya Corporation  (Bridgewater , NJ) – “Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) with three phase Grid Integrated Inverter using 3D printed Magnetics components with Nanocrystalline soft magnetic material.”

Advanced Protective Relaying Technologies and Tools– The reliability of an electric transmission or distribution system in response to a fault is heavily dependent upon the underlying protection scheme that is being utilized to identify and respond to that fault. Innovative advancements in protective relaying systems are almost limitless, which is why this topic area is focused more on reducing or eliminating those aspects that inhibit the performance and reliability of the elements in this field while improving the resiliency of such elements. DOE/OE selected the following awardees and projects:

  •  Delphire Inc (Pasadena, CA) – “Networked Powerline Monitoring System”
  • Diversified Technologies, Inc. (Bedford, MA) – “BTRAN™ Solid State Circuit Breaker (SSCB)”
  •  Elintrix (Escondido, CA) – “Distributed, Active Grid-Interrogation and Signal Analysis for Advanced Protective Relaying”
  • Hive Power Engineering LLC, Allentown, PA – “Logic Testing Tool”
  •  SenSanna Incorporated, Hanover, MD – “Passive Wireless Sensors for Prevention of Arcing Failures in Protective Circuits”
  •  SynchroGrid, College Station, TX – “Adaptive Relay Settings for Wide Area Coordination of the Power Grid”

New Methods for Training Operators Leveraging Advances in Cognitive Science – As the grid has evolved, it has continued to become increasingly complex. At the same time, our reliance on electricity has grown and tolerance for power interruptions have decreased. This means that new operators are entering into an increasingly demanding environment – and may not have much time to learn through trial and experience on the job. Additionally, system operators are facing these new challenges as the workforce is aging – stressing existing operator training norms. New methods or simulators for training system operators are needed to help train the changing workforce. Understanding what system operators require to make informed decisions and analysis, human factors innovation in visualization and decision making can enable more effective training for new operators. Training methods that are able to help the operator learn the uniqueness of the system they will be operating, as opposed to a generic power systems, are needed to meet the growing complexity of the system. DOE/OE made the following selections

  • Design Interactive, Inc. (Orlando, FL) – “Advanced MASTER Pedagogy for Electric-Power Domain (AMPed)”
  • Innosys, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT) – “Intelligent Utility Operator Training Platform”
  • Pacific Science & Engineering Group, Inc. (San Diego, CA) – “Externalized Decision-Making User Interface for Training Smart Grid Operators”

Small businesses play a critical role in this nation’s economy. SBIRs and STTRs are Congressionally-directed programs requiring federal agencies with large research and development (R&D) budgets to set aside a portion of its funding for small businesses. Companies that receive awards in these R&D programs keep the rights to any technology developed and are encouraged to commercialize the technology.

A list of the FY2021 awardees of all of the DOE-funded projects can be found HERE. Additional information about the SBIR and STTR programs can be found at the SBIR/STTR website. To learn more about OE’s efforts to ensure a resilient, reliable, and flexible electricity system, visit the OE website.

ABOUT Stewart Cedres: Mr. Cedres is a Senior Technical Lead and Strategist for DOE’s Office of Electricity. He is currently OE’s SBIR Portfolio Manager. Mr. Cedres is a recognized energy expert specializing on critical infrastructure resilience and on advanced complex systems. He has nearly 30 years of experience in a wide range of energy areas including R&DD, modeling & analytics, policy, and field operations.