The video opens with two individuals sitting next to each other.
Dan Morrison, EERE Digital Team
Hi, everyone, Dan Morrison with the EERE Digital Team. If you're a small business owner you might want to listen up.
Our office recently announced another round of funding to partner small businesses with the U.S. national laboratories. This is your chance to accelerate your clean energy technology using the world-class expertise of our national labs.
An image appears that reads: Up to $50-$300K per small business. Each small business must provide 20% matching funds or in-kind services.
Joining us now is Zack Baize, who leads the Small Business Voucher Program at the Department of Energy. Zack, how does the Small Business Vouchers Program work?
Zack Baize, Small Business Voucher Program Lead
About a year and a half ago, EERE started working with some of our national labs to put this program together. We set up SBV.org, a website that we've developed that really goes over all the different opportunities that small businesses have to work with our labs on all of the different technology areas that EERE works in.
While the two talk, the video pans through images of scientists working in the national laboratories on a variety of different projects.
Dan Morrison
What types of resources are available to small businesses that receive the vouchers?
Zack Baize
We have all kinds of stuff from materials characterization to validation and testing to scale-up opportunities that the labs have available. We have really world-class resources at our national labs and in some cases they are unique. There is literally nothing in the world like them and we really want to make those resources available to small businesses, particularly in clean energy areas that what they are working on and the type of work that EERE is really focused on for our mission.
Dan Morrison
Why is it important for us to open up our national labs to small businesses?
Zack Baize
Really, this is an opportunity for small businesses to get their foot in the door with our national labs. We recognize that the labs can be large and bureaucratic sometimes because they are government organizations. It's hard to understand what's available. But we really want to make an effort to make sure that small businesses know that these opportunities are available to them and that they can access them. We're trying to make that more streamlined and easy for small businesses to access.
Dan Morrison
And for businesses that are interested in applying, what's that process? How's the timeline for this round?
Zack Baize
Round three for SBV is going to be open until November 10 and I encourage everyone to go to sbv.org where they can learn about these opportunities and they can apply through that process as well.
Dan Morrison
Great, thanks very much, Zack.
The video changes to several shots of commercial buildings, captioned, "Better Buildings Initiative Launches Smart Energy Analytics Campaign." It pans through the inside of an office building, then a manufacturing building where forklifts are moving pallets.
The Energy Department also recently launched a smart energy analytics campaign to help commercial buildings achieve greater efficiency.
The initial goal is to engage commercial building owners and operators to use energy management tools that will help monitor, analyze, and control building energy use in 80 million square feet of floor space.
Already 18 partners have joined, representing 50 million square feet of building space.
This is the fourth peer exchange program under our better buildings initiative, which aims to make commercial, public, industrial, and residential buildings 20% more efficient over the next decade.
The video returns to Dan Morrison.
You can learn more about joining the smart energy analytics campaign by logging on to our Better Buildings Solution Center website: betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov.
Learn more at energy.gov/eere/. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/eeregov.