The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit (The Summit) is an annual conference and technology showcase that brings together experts from different technical disciplines and professional communities to think about America’s energy challenges in new and innovative ways. Now in its thirteenth year, the Summit offers a unique, three-day program aimed at moving transformational energy technologies out of the lab and into the market.
The summit is taking place at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland.
Agenda: Day One | Day Two | Day Three
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Energy and the Blue Economy: Emerging Technology Needs and Market Opportunities
This “Energy and the Blue Economy” discussion will bring together representatives from across government, philanthropy, and ocean-based industries, who are all anticipated to drive significant growth in at-sea energy consumption over the coming decade. The panel will serve to connect the ARPA-E community to these diverse users of ocean energy technologies, whose operational requirements will motivate the development of innovative solutions in renewable marine energy generation, storage, and transfer. Discussion topics will include a) current marine energy technology limitations that could be overcome through focused development supported by ARPA-E; b) current and emerging Blue Economy markets that may offer high-risk, but high-growth potential for novel energy technologies; c) shared energy technology requirements across the many segments of the Blue Economy; and d) unique challenges and opportunities for funding and scaling energy technologies for use in ocean environments. Ultimately, this discussion will highlight the role that ARPA-E and its performers, in addition to the DOE at large, can have in supporting the energy needs of growing the Blue Economy, potentially illuminating new markets, novel sources of investment, and untapped technology development spaces.
Julie Decker, Executive Director, Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation
Jennifer Garson, Director, Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
Dr. Tom Fu, Head, Sea Warfare and Weapons, Code 33, Office of Naval Research
Dr. Richard Spinrad, Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Jennifer States, Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer, Blue Sky Maritime Coalition
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Scaling up with SCALEUP
Scaling up a start-up or small business presents multiple challenges. This is particularly true when commercializing hard engineering technologies due to the investment required to demonstrate cost and performance at commercial scale sufficient to address market adoptions risks. Through the SCALEUP program, first launched in 2019, ARPA-E has endeavored to help address these challenges and accelerate deployment of promising technologies previously funded by ARPA-E. In this panel you will hear from leaders of a few of the companies from the SCALEUP 2019 and 2021 cohorts. They will describe some of the key technical, commercial, and team development challenges they have confronted – and continue to confront – in their scale-up journey and how they are addressing them.
Allan Bradshaw, Chief Manufacturing Officer, InventWood
Danny Cunningham, Deputy Director for Commercialization, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)
Dr. Shreya Dave, Chief Executive Officer, Via Separations
Lane Nelson, Co-Founder & Chief Financial Officer, Switched Source
Dr. Greg Rieker, Chief Technology Officer, LongPath Technologies
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
DOE Foundations
The Department of Energy has been tasked with setting up an independent foundation — the Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI) — per section 10691 of the CHIPS Act. FESI will be established as a non-profit 501©(3) organization. This panel will feature established organizations by other government departments. Attendees can gain an understanding of this new organization as panelists discuss what successes the department and organizations have created and how outside stakeholders interact with existing foundations.
Dr. Vanessa Chan, Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the Office of Technology Transitions, U.S. Department of Energy
Maynard Holliday, Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
Dr. Sally Rockey, Chief Executive Officer, Rockey Consulting
Jetta Wong, Co-Author of the 2020, ITIF report, Mind the Gap: A Design for a New Energy Technology Commercialization Foundation, Former Clean Energy
10:25 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Video Address
Zoe Lofgren, Congresswoman, U.S. House of Representatives, California
10:30 a.m. – 10:35 a.m.
Video Address
Martin Heinrich, U.S. Senate, New Mexico
10:35 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Keynote Address
Vicki Hollub, Chief Executive Officer, Oxy
10:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Keynote Address
LTG Eric J. Wesley, U.S. Army, Retired
11:00 a.m. – 11:25 a.m.
Fireside Chat
John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, The White House
Aliya Haq, Vice President, U.S. Policy and Advocacy, Breakthrough Energy
11:25 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Student PITCHES (Proposing Ideas for Technologies that Can Harness Energy Sustainably)
Shomik Verma, Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. Student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
11:30 a.m. – 11:35 a.m.
Keynote Address
Brandon Williams, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives, New York
11:35 a.m. – 11:40 a.m.
Keynote Address
Charles Fleischmann, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives, Tennessee
11:40 a.m.
Closing Remarks
Evelyn Wang, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E)