Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, in partnership with the Chicago Department of Assets, Information and Services (AIS), today announced a new Request for Proposals (RFP) to procure a renewable energy supply contract for City-owned buildings.

The contract will provide all City-owned buildings, streetlights, and other facilities with reliable, renewable electricity supply for at least five years beginning in 2022. The current cost of powering just City-owned buildings with energy is around $40 million annually, resulting in an estimated renewable electricity supply contract of $200 million for the vendor.

The COVID-19 crisis is an especially challenging time for small business owners. In an effort to better help businesses navigate this crisis, the CEBN has compiled a list of financial relief resources. We will continue to update the list of resources as new information becomes available. Please send any additional relevant resources to CEBN staff should you be aware of any.

Each year, this accelerator finds 15-20 companies that best fit their mission and fund each company up to $1 million to improve systems that impact people’s lives: energy, water, food & agriculture, mobility, and the circular economy.

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeks opportunities to co-create, co-design, and co-invest in the research, development, piloting, and scaling of innovative and cost-effective interventions to support the advancement of self-reliant energy sectors in developing countries.

USAID invites organizations, companies, government agencies, academic and research institutions, and investors to propose innovative approaches to address the diverse set of challenges faced by countries that are striving to achieve universal access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy services. USAID developed this BAA for Energy Sector Self-Reliance to expand the Agency’s ability to engage with a wide range of implementing partners and service providers within the global energy sector, and develop new means to rapidly deliver tailored, best-in-class assistance and technologies to help strengthen national and regional energy systems.

Each year Women Founders Network creates a unique opportunity for Female Founders. What makes their pitch competition different than other fast pitch competitions is the valuable leadership and in-kind sponsorships that offered as part of the program. This individualized attention allows the top women entrepreneurs to become pitch-ready in a way that sharpens their plans to scale their companies and makes their business more appealing to Angel and VC investors.

Application under the FOA are sought to develop advanced technologies that can maturate the present state of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) and Solid State Electrolyzer Cell (SOEC) technologies to a point of commercial readiness for power generation and hydrogen production.

There will be three Areas of Interest (AOIs) as follows:

AOI 1 – Small-scale distributed power generation SOFC systems.
AOI 2 – Hybrid systems using solid oxide systems for hydrogen and electricity production including the validation and development of materials and systems required for the improving the cost, performance and reliability.
AOI 3 – Cleaning of coal-derived syngas for use as SOFC fuel and testing of single and multiple cells on syngas.

An enduring challenge to ARPA-E’s mission is that even technologies that achieve substantial technical advancement under ARPA-E support are at risk of being stranded in their development path once ARPA-E funding ends (averaging $2.5M over three years).

The SCALEUP FOA builds upon ARPA-E-funded technologies by scaling the most promising. Stranding promising ARPA-E-funded technologies in their development pathways leaves substantial intellectual property developed with American taxpayer dollars vulnerable to adoption by foreign competitors, who can and do capture it for continued development – and economic benefit – overseas. This harms national competitiveness, as U.S. industries often lose the lead on the development, scaling, and manufacturing of technologies necessary to compete in rapidly evolving global energy markets. These scaling energy technology projects will meet ARPA-E’s statutory direction to achieve the above goals by “ accelerating transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of technical and financial uncertainty”.^[2]

• Facilitate networking between members, advisors and their external stakeholders;
• Create new business opportunities for members;
• Share awareness of, and access to, sources of funding;
• Share knowledge and best practices about business and impact
• Create new visibility opportunities for members, locally and internationally.

Generate is a leading sustainable infrastructure platform delivering affordable, reliable resource solutions to companies, communities, and cities. Founded by some of the renewable energy industry’s leading visionaries, Generate builds, owns, operates and finances sustainable resource infrastructure that adhere to what they call the 4 D’s: Decentralized, Decarbonized, Digitized, Democratized.

Cleantech Open is an accelerator that supports entrepreneurs and corporate innovators by providing resources needed to grow a successful cleantech businesses. Applicants receive world-class mentoring, hands-on training investor meetings, startup-corporate matching, and showcasing at both the regional and national levels and networking opportunities in addition to cash prizes. Major judging criteria include team, technology and market.

At Clean Energy Ventures we’re beating back climate change through energy innovation. We fund disruptive, capital-light technologies and business model innovations that can reshape how we produce and consume energy. Each startup we invest in has the potential to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions between our investment and 2050. Beyond funding, we provide hands-on guidance through dedicated leadership coaching, strategic marketing, IP development, and active board participation. Our collection of 19 Venture Partners guide our startups and enhance our value with their deep technical and operating experience.