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Coming Soon! TRDA offers state-of-the-art technical assistance and capital formation support at no cost to rural clean energy businesses in Florida.

Funded by both the TRDA and the United States Department of Agriculture, this service will accept technical assistance requests and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Industry Growth Forum requests in Florida.

The technical support service provides up to 40 hours of assistance from engineers and scientists, working in an alliance of U.S. based aerospace companies, technology corporations, and universities. These organizations provide their time and expertise to TRDA to help solve the technical challenges submitted by businesses. Upon submission, TRDA will evaluate each rural small business request to determine if it meets program guidelines. If the guidelines are met, TRDA will match each business request with a suitable engineer/scientist from the alliance of business and academic partners in order to provide a solution to the request. Requests are typically resolved within 90 days.

In addition to the technical assistance, TRDA provides rural clean energy companies with application assistance and presentation mentoring for the Department of Energy’s NREL Industry Growth Forum. This annual NREL event is the premiere clean energy investment forum providing networking opportunities and placing entrepreneurs in front of the nation’s top energy venture capitalist and corporate investors.

By providing FREE technology and capital assistance, small businesses are able to overcome their technical and capital challenges and increase their chances of success leading to new sustainable jobs, improved product development, and increased sales.

Success Stories of Clean Energy businesses assisted:

Fitzsimmons Systems, Inc. is developing a patent pending process technology for the production of biodiesel. They were concerned with the best method to recycle the methanol and separate it from any water produced. A chemical engineer with New Mexico State University was able to research the different technologies used in separation of methanol and provide his findings. The information provided helped Fitzsimmons Systems select an absorption process.

HydroGreen Energy, LLC developed different hydro-turbine designs and needed to know which turbine design was the most effective. An engineer with the University of Central Florida was able to perform a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis to evaluate each turbine design. The analysis provided results that helped this company choose the best manufacturing design.

SolarPort Holdings, LLC was trying to understand the specifics of using artificial light, such as LED’s, for plant growth to be used in their solar greenhouse design. An engineer with The Boeing Company at NASA/KSC was able to provide public domain research on LED plant growth performed by NASA on a past space mission. The information provided results of the experiment and specifications on wavelengths used.

How can you apply?

Rural clean energy businesses must contact Ryan Greenough at the TRDA Energy department at 321-872-1050 x 111 or email: ryan@trda.org to obtain application instructions. Requests meeting the program guidelines will be processed on a first come, first serve basis until the request threshold is met. Requests that do not comply with the guidelines will be not processed. Applicants will be notified within two (2) weeks of the status of their requests. Please note that TRDA does not work on software or information technology related challenges. TRDA cannot help fund your project, provide testing, build a prototype or compete with commercially available services and / or products.

Important Growth Forum closing dates are as follows:

• 2009 NREL Industry Growth Forum – (application deadline July 31) November 3-5, 2009

For more information, please call Ryan Greenough at 321-872-1050 x 111 or email: ryan@trda.org 

Program Guidelines

Please take a minute to verify that your business and request meet all the following requirements:

• Must be a clean energy small business in a rural sanctioned area. Preference will be give to disaster and/or economically depressed areas.
• Only small businesses (less than 500 employees) can request technical assistance. Individuals / Inventors do not qualify.
• Business must be owned and operated in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
• Businesses must be able to provide a copy of their business license.
• The request must have a distinct and identifiable technical challenge.
• The technical challenge must appear to be solvable in the 40-hour time allotment.
• The technical challenge request must be able to implement recommendations and have potential quantifiable economic impact results within 3 to 6 months of receiving assistance.
• Technical challenge request must not compete with commercially available products or services.
• The requesting company must have a prototype, specific drawings or a patent.
• The requesting company must assign a point of contact that is available to interact with TRDA’s Energy program through phone calls and emails.
• Companies applying for NREL Growth Forum Assistance will be asked to provide information on business strategy, competitive advantage, market opportunity, sales channels, financial projections, management teams, and business operations.