Brown Announces Nearly $1 Million in Energy R&D; Funding for Toledo’s Xunlight
Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Grant Program Provides Small Businesses with Funding For Research & Development
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A small business in Toledo will receive funding to conduct research and development. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced that Xunlight will receive $1,000,000 through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant program. Brown visited Xunlight in February 2009 when the company announced plans to apply for the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit (48C), which it later received.
“Small businesses are the engines of our nation’s economy, creating nearly two-thirds of new jobs,” Brown said. “With the help of STTR grants, innovators and entrepreneurs at companies across Ohio and our country are helping to develop clean energy technology, create life-saving medical devices, and take other technological strides that will change and improve American lives.”
According to the Department of Energy, the funding will allow Xunlight to develop prototype flexible solar modules using carbon nanotubes and ultrathin semiconductor layers. The project will help maintain U.S. leadership in photovoltaics technology and is aimed at lowering the cost of clean, renewable electricity generation.
Brown pushed for the renewal of the STTR program, which cleared the Senate in December 2011 as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), the mission of the STTR program is to stimulate technological innovation, foster technology transfer through cooperative R&D between small businesses and research institutions; and increase private sector commercialization of innovations derived from federal R&D.
Together with the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the STTR program has delivered more than $233 million to more than 240 Ohio small businesses to develop innovative technologies and grow and create jobs over the previous three decades.
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