WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the launch of its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Technology Commercialization Portal - an online resource that will serve as a tool for companies and potential investors to identify opportunities to invest in work being conducted by DOE laboratories and participating research institutions. Traditionally, said DOE, companies, entrepreneurs, and investors have faced substantial barriers in identifying clean energy technologies to license. The Technology Commercialization Portal has been developed to help reduce these barriers with key information on the attributes, uses, benefits, and market-readiness of specific energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.

The summaries available online describe in detail what energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies are available for licensing, and each summary outlines a technology’s applications, advantages, benefits, and stage of development. The website can streamline a search for specific technologies, or allow the user to browse by subject area. It can also connect organizations and investors to the proper licensing contact.

Additionally, the Portal provides the public access to information on about 14,000 patents and patent applications that have been created using DOE funding since 1992. These patents cover all areas of DOE research, and are linked to summaries when available.

Users of the portal can:

• Browse more than 100 technologies available for licensing.

• Search thousands of DOE patents and patent applications.

• Identify the total number of patents and technology summaries contained on the site.

• Sign up for e-mail updates.

• Link directly to the DOE laboratories that developed the available technologies to get more information.

DOE said its Technology Commercialization Portal is one of the most effective ways for companies and investors to find promising technologies that can be effectively transferred from the laboratory to the private sector.

For more information, visit http://techportal.eere.energy.gov/.

Publication date:07/19/2010