| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 4, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | September 4, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1831191 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Muralidharan Nair
TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2020 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $744,018.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $744,018.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
450 1st St Los Altos CA US 94022-3657 (626)533-8088 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
450 First St, Suite P Los Altos CA US 94022-3657 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | SBIR Phase II |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will address two societal needs. It will enable mass charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs) at minimal cost, and will enable the provisioning of energy services to help integrate renewable energy
sources. This is critical as electricity generation and transportation together consume close to two-thirds of all US energy and emit more than half of all US greenhouse gases. To drastically reduce greenhouse gases will therefore require electrification of our
transportation and renewable generation of our electricity. California (CA) has a mandate to have 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles by 2025 and, currently, half of the nation's EVs are in CA. If the project is successful, the proposed technology, when deployed at scale,
can potentially save CA $144M annually in operating costs and $1.1B in capital cost when CA reaches its ambitious goal by 2025. This can help reduce greenhouse gases annually in CA by 5.5 million metric tons. This project will therefore make an impact in both clean
transportation and clean energy.
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 2 project will develop an adaptive EV charging system that can implement a number of innovations that are not currently available in the EV charging industry. It will offer a site host a solution to recover costs,
jointly optimize onsite distributed energy resources such as solar panels and battery banks, minimize operating cost for site host and charging cost for drivers, and optimally trade off preferences and constraints of different drivers and of the site host, subject to
infrastructure capacity constraints. These technologies will be based on unique real-time sensing, communications, and control capabilities, as well as advanced optimization and learning algorithms. These technologies will provide a target charging capacity at minimal infrastructure and operating costs, as well as a platform for energy services to the grid.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Our EV charging solution became generally available to commercial customers in Q2 of 2019 and has grown in maturity rapidly since. Over the last three years, PowerFlex Systems has grown from a team of five people to a team that is now 25+ strong after the acquisition by EDF Renewables and has become a significant player in large-scale EV charging in the state of California.
We have successfully completed the objectives in our SBIR Phase II proposal despite two significant market challenges: the PG&E bankruptcy that affected many of our projects for 2020 as well as the the Covid-19 pandemic. We now have a strong portfolio of intellectual properties and a growing customer base. We are very encouraged by the fact that we have achieved a large number of customer wins within a short period of time.
NSF SBIR I and II grants have enabled PowerFlex to grow its market share in large-scale EV deployment (i.e., deployment with more than 40 charging stations per site) to 26% in CA and 26% in the US, according to data from the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) that tracks the number of charging stations in the US reported by major companies in this space.
Last Modified: 10/20/2020
Modified by: Cheng Jin
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