August 16 was a day of looking into the future as the first Innovation Incubator (IN2) Summit brought 150 stakeholders to NREL to explore the direction of the program for the coming years. “It’s our 40th birthday, and in that respect, this meeting is very exciting to me because we in the lab are … More Innovation Incubator Summit De-brief
There’s no summer vacation for the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2). Instead, the program—which began in 2014 as a five-year, $10 million effort focused on commercial building startups—is revving up. Just ask Senior Energy Efficiency Research Engineer Shanti Pless, who is a PI for several IN2 projects and who works closely with the IN2 program … More Innovation Incubator Program for Startups Continues to Gain Momentum at NREL
This past week, U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy I-Corps (formerly known as Lab-Corps) teams gathered in Denver, Colorado to finish up cohort 5, following an intensive eight-week training, where lab researchers define technology value propositions, conduct interviews, and explore viable commercialization pathways to bring their technology to market. The three-day closing session reinforced the … More Twelve DOE Lab Teams Explore Commercialization Pathways with Energy I-Corps
Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) awardee Go Electric and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers have begun testing the startup’s inverter, which is designed to provide an uninterruptible power supply that instantly synchronizes with the grid, in NREL’s Energy System Integration Facility (ESIF) Energy Storage Laboratory. Go Electric’s technology, called LYNC DR, integrates patented … More Innovation Incubator Awardee Testing Inverter at Energy Systems Integration Facility
In late February, DOE’s Lab-Corps kicked off the opening session of Cohort 5. Since launched in 2015, Lab-Corps is transforming research into market impact throughout the National Lab system. Built on the validated National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) Model, the two-month program provides scientists with a better understanding of the commercialization process. Cohort 5 … More Transforming Research into Market Impact through DOE Lab-Corps
When National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers helped install a peel-and-stick energy-metering system in a Wells Fargo branch bank last June, they weren’t sure what exactly they would learn. After all, the system from Whisker Labs, an Oakland, California startup, was the first “beta-ready” technology to emerge from the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), a … More IN2 Company Installs Metering System in a Wells Fargo Branch
Developing, validating, scaling, and eventually deploying technologies into the market is no easy feat. That’s why establishing a robust pipeline of technical, business, investment, and partnership resources is essential to supporting early stage entrepreneurial companies as they grow and commercialize their technologies. The Department of Energy, and their 17 national laboratories, are one piece of … More Energizing the Pipeline
The second annual Incubatenergy Network Summer Meeting took place in Los Angeles, August 2-3, bringing together nearly 100 clean energy players including incubators, startups, and utilities. The Incubatenergy Network, a national effort lead by EPRI and NREL, acts as a consortium of clean energy incubators who share best practices, support entrepreneurs, and help facilitate a … More Startups, Incubators, and Utilities Convene at Incubatenergy Summer Meeting
The continuing emergence of new and innovative support programs for technology development is reflective of the many challenges associated with commercializing technology. In cleantech especially, being largely hardware focused and capital intensive, the search for the ideal commercialization-focused program mix continues. A recent NREL published white paper examines some of the models and partnership structures … More Accelerating Clean Technology Solutions: Inside the Innovation Incubator
The maxim “If you build it, they will come” worked fine in the movie “Field of Dreams” about a mythic ball yard—but it’s not a successful recipe for researchers-turned-entrepreneurs bringing technology to market. “You need to understand where the problems are, and what the needs of the customer are, and then work backward,” says NREL … More Researchers Becoming Entrepreneurs in Lab-Corps Commercialization Program
