Israel-US Program To Invest $9.76M In Clean Energy Projects

The Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the Israel Innovation Authority and the US Department of Energy are investing $9.75 million in nine clean energy projects as part of an ongoing joint initiative. 

The Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) program has approved projects addressing battery technology, CO2 reduction, energy efficiency, solar energy, energy storage, and agrivoltaics (the use of land for both agriculture and solar energy generation). 

BIRD was started to foster collaboration between Israel and the United States in the fields of sustainable energy technologies. The projects that have qualified had to include an Israeli and an American company or a company paired with a university or research institution from the other country. 

The qualified projects also must contribute at least 50 percent of the cost and commit to repayment if the project becomes a commercial success. 

With private investment, the total funding for the projects comes to $27 million. 

The approved projects are:

Bar Ilan R&D Company (Ramat Gan) and Forge Nano (Thornton, CO) to develop flexible thin film coatings for improved high-capacity anodes that play an important role in electrochemical processes, such as in batteries;

SolarPaint (Yokneam Illit) and Lippert Components (Elkhart, IN) to develop a fully flexible and rollable solar panel, meant for balconies, RVs and more; 

Groundwork BioAg (Mazor) and Verdesian Life Sciences US (Cary, NC) to develop a solution to enhance soil and improve agriculture by integrating diverse types of fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria into corn and soybean crops;

CarbonBlue (Haifa) and Energy & Environmental Research Center (Grand Forks, ND) to upscale and commercialize technologies that remove ocean-based carbon dioxide;

Boson Energy Ltd. (Modi’in) and the C.&J. Nyheim Plasma Institute at Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA) to develop a system for gasification projects so that the equipment being used does not become clogged;

PowerPlug (Tel Aviv) and Cirrus Nexus (New York, NY) to develop an AI platform to monitor, analyze and reduce the information technology carbon footprint;

AIR EV (Pardes Hanna) and Nidec Motor Corporation (St. Louis, MO) to develop an electric motor for a mid-size eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft 

Trigo Solar (Sde Hemed) and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Sponsored Research Services (College Station, TX) to develop a water-energy mounting system able to collect and store rainwater for rainfed row crops; 

Windstore (Tel Mond) and NPS Solutions (Darien, CT) to develop a compressed air energy storage system that incorporates wind turbine towers. 

“This unique platform has played a significant role in advancing the energy ecosystems, particularly in enhancing collaborations between corporations and research institutions across the US and Israel,” said Jaron Lotan, the executive director of BIRD. 

“I am proud to have been able to approve this great group of projects in these challenging times when strengthening technology cooperation between the US and Israel is more important than ever.”

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