Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Electrons Leveraged through Electrochemical Conversion Technologies to Realize Opportunities for New Services (ELECTRONS)

工程研究中心规划拨款竞赛是ERC项目的试点征集。规划补助金不需要作为ERC竞赛的一部分，但它旨在在团队之间建立能力，以规划聚合的、中心规模的工程研究。可再生电力正变得丰富而廉价。我们正处于一个渐进的、长达数十年的工业和社会电气化过程的风口浪尖，用电子取代化石燃料，就像汽车行业在过去20年里所做的那样。然而，这种向清洁能源输入的转变需要能够有效利用这种能源的设备和工艺。通过电化学转换技术利用电子实现新服务的机会（电子）利用这一巨大的机会来提供“缺失的环节”，这是一种灵活有效的手段，可以将可用电子用于广泛的应用。电子需要涉及许多科学和工程学科以及利益相关者的研究，以实现其从核心设备结构中获得重大社会效益的愿景，从而在多种情况下以多种规模提供能力。该计划旨在通过连接技术和“软”组件来建立能够实现这一机会的团队。规划拨款将通过“敏捷”方法来建立团队，这是初创企业常用的一种方法。它需要一个由小团队组成的团队，称为scrums，执行构建-测试-分析？对于一个给定的产品，驱动一个快速的学习曲线和开发周期，也结合了来自产品客户的输入。团队将采用敏捷scrum方法进行ERC提案开发，以构建项目和组织的各个方面，将敏捷方法纳入？DNA ?NSF-ERC的计划拨款该中心将以其他相关技术高度发达的核心系统为基础，为广泛的服务提供使用可再生能源电力的设备，并将寻求这些系统的商业化。预计这一努力将在技术领域产生衍生公司和就业机会，并为各种工业流程提供高效和清洁的替代技术。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.Renewable electricity is becoming abundant and cheap. We are on the cusp of a gradual, decades-long process of electrification across industry and society, replacing fossil fuels with electrons, much as the auto industry has executed over the past two decades. However, this transition to cleaner energy inputs demands devices and processes that can use this energy source efficiently. Electrons Leveraged through Electrochemical Conversion Technologies to Realize Opportunities for New Services (ELECTRONS) engages this enormous opportunity to provide the 'missing link,' a flexible and efficient means to use available electrons for a wide range of applications. ELECTRONS requires research that engages many scientific and engineering disciplines and stakeholders to achieve its vision of major societal benefits from a core device construct to deliver capability in numerous contexts at numerous scales. This planning grant aims to build the team that can realize this opportunity by connecting technical and 'softer' components. The planning grant will proceed via an 'agile' approach to building the team, a method often used in start-ups. It entails a team of small teams, called scrums, which execute iterative cycles of ?build-test-analyze? for a given product to drive a rapid learning curve and development cycle, also incorporating input from customers of the product. The team will employ the agile scrum approach for ERC proposal development to build all aspects of the project and organization, putting the agile approach into the ?DNA? of the proposed NSF-ERC effort arising from this planning grant. Based on a core system that is highly developed for other related technologies, the Center to be proposed will deliver the devices for using renewable sources of electricity for a wide range of services and will seek to commercialize these systems. It is anticipated that this effort will produce spin-off companies and jobs in the tech sector as well as efficient and clean replacement technologies for various industry processes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.