BETO announces its intention of funding the optimization of integrated biorefineries
The Demonstration
and Market Transformation (DMT) Program culminates the Research, Development,
and Demonstration (RD&D) work of all other programs in the Bioenergy
Technologies Office (BETO) of the U.S. DOE. Its goal is to de-risk
bioenergy production technologies by validated proof of performance at the
pilot, demonstration, and pioneer scales, and to remove any additional barriers
to commercialization. BETO achieves these goals through public-private
partnerships that build and operate integrated biorefineries (IBRs). Robust
scale-up of biorefinery technologies is essential for enabling the industry to
build commercial-scale manufacturing facilities.
Figure 1. DMT supports cost-shared,
first-of-a-kind facilities to de-risk new technologies and bring industry
beyond the valley of death (extracted from DOE web page about DMT)
Against this background, the Office
of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) intends to issue, on
behalf of the BETO and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and
Agriculture, a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) entitled “Integrated
Biorefinery Optimization” (see press
release and the full
NOI).
The information available about the
FOA is summarized in the following table:
Purpose
|
It will support research and development of
technologies that will improve the quality of feedstock characterization and
reliability of operations, decrease the Capital Expenses (CapEx) and Operating
Expenses (OpEx) and, thereby, increase the performance efficiencies of
biorefineries resulting in continuous operation and production of biofuels,
bioproducts and biopower at prices competitive with fossil-derived
equivalents.
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Areas of Interest
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1. Robust, continuous handling of solid
materials (dry and wet feedstocks, biosolids, and/or residual solids
remaining in the process) and feeding systems to reactors under various
operating conditions.
2. High value products from waste and/or
other under-valued streams in an integrated biorefinery.
3. Industrial separations within an
integrated biorefinery.
4. Analytical modeling of solid materials handling
and reactor feeding systems
|
Feedstocks and products
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Plans for processes that convert woody
biomass, agricultural residues, dedicated energy crops, algae, municipal
solid waste (MSW), sludge from wastewater treatment plants, and wet wastes,
into biofuels, biochemicals, and bioproducts will be considered under this FOA.
|
Schedule
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The FOA is expected to be posted on the EERE Exchange in December 2016.
The estimated period of performance for each
award will be approximately 36 months.
|
Financing model
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EERE envisions awarding multiple financial
assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements.
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