Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has received two Excellence in Technology Awards from the Federal Laboratory Consortium for its work to commercialize technologies that create clean energy.

The two awards for 2009 bring the total earned by the Department of Energy's lab in Richland to 69, more than any other federal laboratory since the recognition program began in 1984.

PNNL developed the new technologies and then formed partnerships with private companies to allow the technologies to be brought to market.

The first technology, the thermoelectric ambient energy harvester, produces electricity whenever there is a temperature difference across the device's two ends.

The energy harvesters can be used to replace or extend the life of traditional batteries in wireless sensors and radio frequency transmitters.

They're particularly useful in remote locations because workers don't have to travel to check on batteries in equipment used for tasks such as monitoring the integrity of pipelines.

A group of University of Oregon graduate students created business and marketing plans for the technology through the Technology Entrepreneurship Program, a joint program of the university and PNNL.

Then one of the students, along with technology experts from Hewlett-Packard, founded Perpetua Power Source Technologies in Corvallis, Ore., to commercialize the technology.

It markets the Perpetua Power Puck for industrial automation, military and other uses.

The second technology uses solid oxide fuel cells to produce auxiliary power. A long-haul trucker can use the fuel cell auxiliary power unit to listen to the radio or run the air conditioner with the truck engine is off.

Battelle, which operates PNNL, teamed with Delphi Corp. on the project to use the power systems for transportation uses.

In the future the power units could also be used in clean power plants. PNNL expects the technology to play a key role in improving energy-efficient power generation.