New Mexico State University will receive a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help develop a pipeline for clean energy tech businesses, according to a DOE news release.
The money will go to the university’s Arrowhead Center, which helps small businesses grow through their resources, connection and expertise.
Specifically, the money will help expand the New Mexico Clean Energy Resilience and Growth Cluster. It's a partnership between the university's Arrowhead Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico Economic Development Department and Sandia National Laboratories. The goal of the partnership is to help clean energy tech businesses expand by way of marketing and development.
The partnership is relatively new, and it received an initial DOE grant of $50,000 last year, said Arrowhead Center’s senior economic development director Del Mackey
“The hybrid accelerator is a multi-week cohort-based program focused on customer discovery, market validation, and other key commercialization activities for small start-ups, and then shows them how to transition that critical information into a Small Business Innovation Research [or] Small Business Technology Transfer proposal packages for funding their innovative idea,” said Mackey.
The DOE funded 10 different accelerators and incubators across the country through its Energy Program for Innovation Clusters program, which NMSU applied for in February of this year, Mackey said.
NMSU and four of the other 10 incubators and accelerators — which includes Colorado State University — received the full $1 million through DOE’s program.
With the funding and through the CERG program, Arrowhead Center will focus on education and support for small, startup businesses in clean energy tech. The state’s Economic Development Department will focus on cluster expansion across New Mexico. The two labs will allow for the businesses that are part of the program to have their facilities and expertise.
What exactly is a cluster?
“In the innovation ecosystem, a cluster is usually a grouping of tools, resources, training, and assistance that focuses on businesses within a geographical region or a particular domain of expertise,” Mackey told Albuquerque Business First. “NM CERG is both, with a geographical region of the entire state of New Mexico and a domain focus of clean-energy.”
Clean energy tech businesses and startups will have to wait a few months reap the benefits from the project, Mackey said. The Arrowhead Center and the Department of Energy are in talks about potential start dates for programs that will be a part of NM CERG.
Then, clean energy tech businesses — both small and large — “can utilize [it] for growth and development,” Mackey said.
