The US Government has announced $24 million (£18.6m) of funding for projects that aim to commercially scale up battery development as well as methane detection technologies.

It will support the first stage of the Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) programme, an initiative that supports the scaling of high-risk and potentially disruptive new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications.

It works to take promising energy technologies to the pre-pilot stage of the path to market and ultimately lead to realised commercial impact.

The SCALEUP “fast-track” teams – Natron Energy and Bridger Photonics – will receive $19 million (£14.7m) and $5 million (£3.8m) respectively to further their commercialisation efforts in sodium-ion battery development and methane detection technologies.

Lane Genatowski, Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) said: “Many ARPA-E funded projects show immense technical promise but at the end of their funding cycle are met with the difficult challenge of overcoming the dreaded ‘valley of death’ in securing further funding.

“These two selections directly address this need and provide a mix of government and private resources to bring previously-funded ARPA-E technologies out of the lab and into the market.”