Cohort 4 awardees will be announced in 2024.
Review the Eligibility Requirements in the CalTestBed Application Manual.
Explore the CalTestBed Facilities Directory to identify laboratories with capabilities to meet your testing needs.
Join in or watch a CalTestBed Solicitation Webinar.
Review the CalTestBed Voucher Application Questions and Technical Reviewers’ Scoring Rubric in the Application Manual.
Create Your Login and Password in the SmartSimple Portal.
Complete your Online Application by the Deadline as Listed
The California Testbed Initiative (CalTestBed) is a laboratory voucher and commercialization development program for innovators and entrepreneurs working to bring early to mid-stage clean energy concepts to market. It is made possible by a grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC) Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) and is administered by New Energy Nexus, in partnership with University of California campuses, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Momentum.
CalTestBed provides clean energy entrepreneurs with vouchers worth up to $300,000 for third party testing of their technologies at one of more than 70 testbed facilities across Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and nine UC campuses. Voucher recipients gain access to testing at worldclass facilities to de-risk their technologies, maintain their IP, and connect to a broad network of commercialization partners.
PROGRAM BENEFITS
CalTestBed is open to applicants working on innovations with existing prototypes – designed to provide benefits to California rate-payers. Applicants must be located in California, provide their California address, and must be in good standing with the California Secretary of State and the California Energy Commission (if applicable). Applicants must use the company name you have registered with the state as the company name on your application.
At the time of application, applicant should not be a publicly traded company or a subsidiary of a public company.
Additionally, proposed innovations must meet some basic requirements. At a minimum, it should:
Those who can apply include:
*Universities and large corporations are not eligible to apply to this opportunity
CalTestBed enhances electricity reliability by increasing the array of clean energy and energy efficient technologies ready for commercialization, and funds the testing and validation of emerging technologies. CalTestBed will support California innovators who find it difficult to negotiate the testbed ecosystem and increases the reliability of the energy products for ratepayers.
CalTestBed develops and streamlines the feedback process among testbeds to meet customer safety specifications, as well as supporting the standardization of “customer-facing” services by testbeds to the innovation community. Through the CalTestBed Network, the Ombudspeople coordinates California testbeds to standardize safety testing and certifications and develop best practices for managing the testbed—entrepreneur relationship.
CalTestBed dramatically lowers costs to ratepayers by accelerating new clean energy technologies to the market that offer energy efficiency and lower costs, as well as decreases the cost to ratepayers of unsafe and ineffective new clean energy products. By supporting faster commercialization of new clean energy products, societal costs of older non-renewable and inefficient energy products will be reduced. The program/initiative also lowers future costs in testbeds by developing additional revenues to continue to sustain and expand California’s burgeoning testbed assets.