- Maximum Phase I Award Amount: $150,000
- Maximum Phase II Award Amount: $1,000,000
- Now accepting SBIR Phase I and STTR Phase I Applications
Low Enthalpy Geothermal Forward Osmosis
The Geothermal Technologies Office seeks to partner with a small business to commercialize a novel Forward Osmosis (FO) process driven by low-enthalpy geothermal heat. In contrast to Reverse Osmosis (RO), which utilizes mechanical energy to create a pressure gradient across a membrane to purify water, FO can be achieved by utilizing a draw solution to create an osmotic pressure gradient across the membrane to treat the water. Historically, FO systems have had limited utility because draw solutes have been difficult to separate from the treated water. Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have developed a system for implementing FO using a switchable-polarity solvent (SPS) draw solution that can be easily extracted from the treated water stream and reused.
Dispatchable Geothermal Operations
The Geothermal Technologies Office solicits innovations that will enable geothermal energy to be more widely deployed as a dispatchable electricity source. These innovations can be in developing new hardware solutions, new systems of existing technologies, or new control algorithms and/or processes. Some potential areas of interest include: offsetting parasitic loads from normal plant operations during curtailment, improving lifetime reservoir performance, and integrating novel storage technology. The innovation could also take the form of developing an analysis tool that provides a valuation of operating current geothermal power plants in a flexible mode; however, any application proposing such an analysis tool must clearly show the ability to monetize their innovation in the commercialization plan.