The nation’s top scientific advisory institution offered a strong endorsement Thursday of an Obama-era energy innovation agency that President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to eliminate or starve of funding.
Since it was initially funded in 2009, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has provided more than $4.2 billion to over 1,700 projects, resulting in the formation of at least 173 companies, according to a yearslong review by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Those companies have raised a further $15.2 billion from private equity investors, the National Academies found.
Over the years, the budget of ARPA-E has ranged from around $200 million to $450 million, which makes the Energy Department agency a relatively small player in the technology research, development and demonstration space. But its investments “provide valuable technical validation and derisking, enabling hand-off to funders with more resources to support commercialization,” said the 312-page report, which was requested by Congress as part of the Energy Act of 2020.
