BIRD Energy Announces Next Cycle of Funding for US-Israel Cooperation on Renewable Energy

BIRD Energy announced its next funding cycle for U.S.-Israel joint project proposals with an emphasis on Renewable Energy and Efficiency and Natural Gas Technologies.

To be considered, a project proposal must include R&D cooperation between two companies or cooperation between a company and a university/research institution (one from the U.S. and one from Israel). The proposal should have significant commercial potential and the project outcome should lead to commercialization.

Examples of research and development topics within the scope of this call are: Solar and Wind Power, Advanced Vehicle Technologies and Alternative Fuels, Natural Gas and other associated technologies, Smart Grid, Storage, Water-Energy Nexus, Advanced Manufacturing or any other Renewable Energy/Energy Efficiency technology. This year the topic of AI for Energy Management has also been added to the scope.

The conditional grant per project is up to 50% of the R&D costs associated with the joint project, and up to a maximum of $1 million per project.

Dr. Eitan Yudilevich, Executive Director of the BIRD Foundation, said: "We are pleased to announce the twelfth annual BIRD Energy Call for Proposals to promote and enable partnerships between the U.S. and Israel to jointly develop innovative alternative energy technologies and energy efficiency solutions, contributing to the economies and the sustainability goals of both countries. Since the beginning of the BIRD Energy, the program has funded forty-nine projects with a total government investment of approximately $38 million, in addition to the $49 million in matching funds from the private sector. Several of these projects have been generating commercial success and initial sales."

The application process is web-based and requires prior discussion with the BIRD Foundation staff. The deadline for submission of the Executive Summaries is June 30, 2020, and if approved, the full-scale proposals are due by August 13, 2020. Decisions on projects selected for funding will be made in November 2020. Please refer to BIRD's website for submission details - http://www.birdf.com