Jay Clemens
The Energy Department has launched an exploratory licensing program to allow companies to test-drive technologies at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory before they apply for a full license.
Under the new commercialization option, companies will sign an agreement and pay $1,000 to assess a technology for six months in order to help them decide what product to develop out of the technology, PNNL said May 9.
Peter Christensen, acting director of PNNL technology deployment and outreach, said the exploratory license is intended to help companies access and test technologies developed at PNNL and apply those technologies in real-world scenarios.
PNNLÂ noted that exploratory licenses do not need negotiations and would take less than five business days to finalize.
The lab already granted an exploratory license to Littleton, Colorado-based ITN Energy Systems in August 2015 to test vanadium flow batteries.
PNNL designed the batteries with additives to increase energy density so that the technology stores enough energy to support power grid operations.
Battelle manages and operates PNNL under an agreement with DOE.
