ASU to lead first-ever national algae testbed, awarded $15M grant from Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy has selected the Arizona State University led Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership (ATP³) for a $15M award for its Advancements in Sustainable Algal Production opportunity.

“This algae national testbed will provide high quality data and a network of sites that will speed the pace of innovation,” said Gary Dirks, director of ATP³ and ASU LightWorks, the university initiative that pulls light-inspired research at ASU under one strategic framework. “The network will support companies and research institutions as they work to meet the nation’s energy challenges.”

"ASU is committed to advancing research and economic development," said Sethuraman Panchanathan, senior vice president with ASU's Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development. "We are proud of the work being done at the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation on our Polytechnic campus and are looking forward to increasing our impact on the advancement of the algae-industry in collaboration with the newly established ATP³ partnership."

The ATP³ partnership is led by the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation (AzCATI) housed at ASU’s Polytechnic campus with support from national labs and academic and industrial partners, including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Sandia National Laboratories, Cellana LLC, Touchstone Research Laboratory, SRS Energy, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Texas at Austin, and Commercial Algae Management.

“This is a critical step for DOE’s support of the growing algal biofuel industry,” said Philip Pienkos, principal manager of the applied biology group at NREL and director of integration for ATP³. “The productivity data generated by the ATP³ testbeds will flow into techno-economic and lifecycle assessment models and provide a basis for tracking progress toward goals in production economics and sustainability. By making high quality testbed capabilities available to researchers and technology developers, they will allow rapid testing of novel concepts at scale and greatly accelerate commercialization. 

"NREL is proud to play a key role in the establishment and operation of the ATP³ testbed in a manner that will allow DOE to achieve its long term goals towards production of advanced biofuels.”

ATP³ will function as a testing facility for the algal research community supporting the operation of existing outdoor algae cultivation systems and allowing researchers access to real-world conditions for algal biomass production for biofuel. Testbed facilities for the partnership are physically located in Arizona, Hawaii, California, Ohio and Georgia.

DOE’s investment from its Biomass Program in ATP³ means companies and research institutes will now have access to facilities and data from long-term algal cultivation trials for use in establishing a realistic and coherent state of technology for algal biofuels.

“This multi-regional testbed will address a major gap currently hindering the scale-up of algal biofuels,” said Blake Simmons, the biomass program manager for Sandia. “This partnership will provide validated data on algal growth and biofuel production across multiple sites in the USA, and will provide essential data related to the scale-up and commercialization of algal biofuels.”

AzCATI was created by grants from Science Foundation Arizona and its president and CEO William Harris. AzCATI and algae research and development also benefitted from the strong support of Arizona Gov. Janice Brewer.

Two new algae-related bills passed in Arizona classify algae as agriculture and allow for growth and harvest of algae on state trust lands. These advancements in the state create a more attractive environment for industry. Arizona is poised to be a preferred destination for new algae-based companies to form and flourish.

For more information about AzCATI visit azcati.com.