42 U.S.C. § 19301 — National Clean Energy Incubator Program

(a) Clean energy incubator defined. A "clean energy incubator" is any group set up to speed up the real-world use of clean energy technology. It does this by giving physical workspace, labs, and prototyping facilities to clean energy startups or established companies, or by giving companies support like business education and counseling, mentoring, and other services that help develop and commercialize clean energy technology. An incubator can be a program run by a National Laboratory, a college or university, or a state, territorial, local, or tribal government. (b) Program establishment. Within 180 days after this Act became law, the Secretary — acting through the Chief Commercialization Officer — must set up a Clean Energy Incubator Program to competitively award grants to clean energy incubators. (c) Clean energy incubator selection. When picking which incubators get grants, the Secretary must, as much as practical, favor incubators that: partner with local, state, and regional groups doing related work; help startups working on physical hardware, computing, or combined hardware-and-software technologies; sit in geographically diverse parts of the country, like the Great Lakes region; are located in, or partner with groups in, economically distressed areas; help expand clean energy tools to rural, tribal, and low-income communities; help commercialize technology from entrepreneurs with underrepresented backgrounds; and have a plan to keep running after the grant money runs out. (d) Award limits. The Secretary can't give more than $4,000,000 total to incubators in any one state in a single fiscal year. (e) Duration. Each grant lasts no more than 5 years, depending on how much money Congress provides. (f) Use of funds. A group that gets a grant can use the money for operating expenses. (g) Renewal. A grant can be renewed for up to 3 more years if it passes a merit review. (h) Evaluation. Following the reporting rules in a separate section, the Secretary must send Congress an evaluation of the program, including how well the incubators are performing. (i) Authorization of appropriations. Congress may provide the Secretary $15,000,000 for each year from 2023 through 2027 to run this program.