The Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation invested $9.75 million in nine U.S.-Israel clean energy projects. The projects are Bar Ilan R&D Company, SolarPaint, Groundwork BioAg, CarbonBlue, Boson Energy Ltd., PowerPlug , AIR EV, Trigo Solar and Windstore.
The BIRD Foundation was established by the U.S. and Israeli governments in 1977 to generate mutually beneficial cooperation between the private sectors of the U.S. and Israeli high tech industries, including start-ups and established organizations. BIRD provides both matchmaking services between U.S. and Israeli companies, as well as funding covering up to 50 percent of project development and product commercialization costs.
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BIRD said in a Facebook post that the investments are in “innovative binational collaborations,” spanning agrivoltaics, battery technology, CO2 reduction, energy efficiency, solar energy, and energy storage. The recipients have also secured additional private-sector financing, resulting in a total value of $27 million for all projects.
Selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Israel’s Ministry of Energy (MoE), and the Israel Innovation Authority, each new BIRD Energy partnership marks a “significant step forward in jointly advancing sustainable technology and tackling key global energy challenges.”
“Recent events in Israel lead to increased need and motivation to invest in technologies that can improve early detection of threats and upgrade the preparedness of first responders,” said Jaron Lotan, Executive Director of the BIRD Foundation. “This year we saw several such submissions that have the potential to improve capabilities in both Israel and the U.S. The three granted projects, all of them focused on early detection of different threats, are a good indication of the futuristic tools that will serve first responders in the years to come.”
About the selected firms:
Bar Ilan R&D Company (Ramat Gan, Israel), the technology transfer office of Bar Ilan University, and Forge Nano (Thornton, CO) to develop advanced flexible thin film coatings by molecular layer deposition for improved high-capacity anodes.
SolarPaint (Yokneam Illit, Israel) and Lippert Components (Elkhart, IN) to develop a unique solar awning – a flexible and rollable solar panel suitable for RVs, residential balconies, and more.
Groundwork BioAg (Mazor, Israel) and Verdesian Life Sciences U.S. (Cary, NC) to collaborate on developing solutions to enhance soil carbon sequestration and provide agricultural benefits by integrating mycorrhiza species, strains, and nitrogen-fixing bacteria targeting corn and soybean crops.
CarbonBlue (Haifa, Israel) and Energy & Environmental Research Center (Grand Forks, ND) to scale up and commercialize ocean-based carbon dioxide removal technology for the desalination industry.
Boson Energy Ltd. (Modi’in, Israel) and Drexel University’s (Philadelphia, PA) C. & J. Nyheim Plasma Institute to develop a next-generation tar cracking system for gasification projects.
PowerPlug (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Cirrus Nexus (New York, NY) to develop an AI-driven SaaS-based platform for monitoring, analyzing, and reducing the IT carbon footprint across on-premise IT devices, on-premise data centers, and cloud resources.
AIR EV (Pardes Hanna, Israel) and Nidec Motor Corporation (St. Louis, MO) to develop an electric motor tailored for mid-size eVTOL aircraft.
Trigo Solar (Sde Hemed, Israel) and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Sponsored Research Services (College Station, TX) to demonstrate a water-energy agrivoltaic mounting system able to collect, divert, and store rainwater and irrigate cultivated rows of rainfed row crops.
Windstore (Tel Mond, Israel) and NPS Solutions (Darien, CT) to develop a compressed air energy storage solution incorporating wind turbine towers.
