The Rice Alliance, the Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI) and TEX-E are partnering for the annual Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition at CERAWeek, set to take place in the Innovation Agora in the George R. Brown Convention Center on March 12, 2025 with a special Pitch Preview event (free to attend) on March 11 at the Ion Houston. The Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition features pitches from more than 40 energy ventures driving efficiency and advancements toward the energy transition. The fast-paced competition is designed to connect energy startups with venture capitalists, corporate innovation groups, industry leaders, academics, and service providers.

Smart Futures Lab offers an invaluable opportunity for growth in the tech space through a free incubator and accelerator program. Open to new majority tech founders, professionals, and students, looking to develop and scale their smart city innovation solutions. The Incubator Program caters to tech startups in the early stages of development, whether they are ideating, designing, or testing their products. The Accelerator Program is for mature companies looking to scale, build government partnerships, refine their business model, and find funding investors.

Launch your electrifying journey into the future of innovation! Join the world’s largest multi-sector commercialization program for emerging deep technologies. Pitch your groundbreaking innovations and connect with top-tier corporate, investment, military and federal leaders for partnering, licensing and investment opportunities. Whether you’re a startup, university TTO, federal lab, or federal awardee, seize the moment. Submit your commercially viable innovation now and connect with the largest gathering of tech-scouts and funding offices worldwide.

The E-Team Program, part of the VentureWell Accelerator, supports student ventures as you embark down the path you’re likely to take as an innovator and entrepreneur. We help you advance your invention through a powerful mix of up to $25,000 in grant funding, entrepreneurship training, mentorship by dedicated staff, national recognition, and networking with peers and industry experts.

The purpose of this solicitation is to award grants to fund projects focused on geothermal energy and lithium recovery from geothermal brine that support local jurisdictions and private entities to advance the geothermal sector and related activities per Public Resource Code (PRC) Sections 3800-3827 and California Code of Regulations (CCR) Sections 1660-1665. Under no circumstances will loans be issued under this solicitation.

The overall objectives of this FOA is to (1) continue to advance Critical Minerals and Materials technology development, not only in the area of new advanced recovery concepts, but also to (2) expand and improve process systems development, optimization, and efficiency, to (3) improve Critical Minerals and Materials process system economic feasibility and align production costs with existing market sectors, and to (4) produce CMM from multiple, diverse feedstocks including recycled materials. Modification 000001: The purpose of this modification is to include 2024 Revisions to Title 2 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and update technical language concerning Area of Interest 1.

The IGF builds on decades of technical expertise and market analysis accumulated at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the nation’s only federal lab dedicated to renewable energy and energy efficiency research. We are strongly committed to our mission of connecting cutting-edge startups with motivated investors. Presenting companies are chosen from applicants vetted by a selection committee of more than 150 climate tech and cleantech investors and industry experts. This rigorous screening process provides beneficial feedback to startups that apply. The top 40 companies are invited to present.

Hailing from around the world, BE Fellows are focused on technologies that have the potential to reduce greenhouse gases, at scale, by at least 500 million tons per year. Technologies supported to date include high-impact areas such as hydrogen, electrofuels, steel, cement, food and agriculture, energy storage, nuclear fusion, carbon dioxide capture, storage and sequestration. The Breakthrough Energy Fellows program has three pathways, defined as follows:

• Innovator Fellows are world-leading scientists and engineers who enter the program with a critical climate technology to commercialize.
• Business Fellows are experienced professionals with tech commercialization skills who support the Innovator Fellows in accelerating their path to market.
• Explorers receive funding for earlier stage, higher technical risk endeavors. These projects are typically led by scientists at university labs or research entities.

The Inspiring Generations of New Innovators to Impact Technologies in Energy (IGNIITE) 2025 program is designed to support a new cohort of early-career innovators to develop the most disruptive and unconventional ideas into transformative new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications. This announcement is purposefully broad in technical scope, but eligibility is limited to early-career researchers. In addition to research efforts, awardees will engage with ARPA-E and fellow awardees through dedicated IGNIITE events, meetings, and mentorship activities. Submissions to this solicitation must propose transformational R&D that has the potential for high impact. If successful, a project could create a new class or new trajectory for an energy technology, with the potential to substantially contribute to ARPA-E’s statutory goals. Awards under this program may take the form of exploratory research that provides the agency with information useful for the subsequent development of focused technology programs. Alternatively, awards may support proof-of-concept research for a particular new technology in an area not currently supported by the agency.

Are you an innovator? Do you have an emerging business or solution related to energy, climate, sustainability, or cleantech? Are you ready to take your innovation or business to the next level? The PowerNorth Virtual Incubator is a 10-week program tailored for early-stage energy and cleantech entrepreneurs in Minnesota.

Sponsored by the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the American-Made EnergyTech University Prize (EnergyTech UP) challenges student teams to compete for cash prizes for successfully identifying a promising energy technology, assessing its market potential, and creating a business plan for commercialization. Faculty are challenged to create innovative implementation plans that expand energy technology commercialization.

Students: Develop and present a business plan that leverages National Laboratory-developed or other emerging energy technologies developed by students, faculty, or industry. Throughout the competition, they receive mentorship and materials to help them succeed, all while competing for more than $400,000 in cash prizes.

Faculty: Develop and implement educational activities to engage more students in energy technology commercialization and entrepreneurship topics at their institution. While faculty have always been, and remain, welcome and encouraged to mentor a team competing in EnergyTech UP, this new track is designed to incentivize and support faculty directly, with more than $100,000 in cash prizes available.

The Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) Ready program provides a vital mechanism for the support of innovative energy R&D that complements ARPA-E’s primary focus on early-stage transformational energy technologies that require proof of concept. This program focuses only on scaling and pre-pilot projects of promising technologies that ARPA-E has previously funded. A SCALEUP Ready award would substantially build upon innovations achieved under the original ARPA-E award.