Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy

Invests ARPA-E, the Department of Energy office backing bold, high-impact energy technology projects.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) was chartered in 2007 by the America COMPETES Act and began operations in 2009. Modeled on DARPA, it sits within DOE but operates as a high-autonomy program office. ARPA-E funds projects that exhibit transformative potential — technologies that, if successful, could create entirely new learning curves rather than improve existing ones.

As of 2026, ARPA-E has funded over 1,500 projects whose portfolio companies have attracted more than $12 billion in private follow-on investment. The agency typically launches 15 to 20 focused programs per year, each with its own competitive solicitation, plus the broad cross-cutting OPEN program (biennial, ~$150M per cycle), the IGNIITE program for early-career researchers (annual, ~$10M), and the SCALEUP Ready program for ARPA-E alumni advancing to commercialization (~$50M/year).

Congress set ARPA-E's FY2026 budget at approximately $350 million, a $110 million reduction from $460 million in FY2025. Award sizes and program counts are expected to tighten through the budget cycle.