The US Department of Energy has launched a program under which it is offering large discounts on licenses for patents its chain of National Laboratories holds for energy technologies, including multiple technologies that can be applied in data centers.

Aim of the program, called "America's next top energy innovator", is to help start-ups in the US grow using innovations created in the department's 17 labs. Only 10% of all patents the government currently holds have been licensed for commercialization.

US energy secretary Steven Chu said the goal was to give US a leg up in the "global race" for clean-energy jobs. Because we've cut the upfront fees and reduced the paperwork, we'll make it easier for start-up companies to succeed and create the new jobs our economy needs."

One of the technologies that can be licensed for commercialization in the data center space is a heat exchanger device and a method for heat removal and transfer developed by the Sandia National Laboratories.

"In one embodiment, heat is transferred to or from a thermal load in thermal contact with a heat conducting structure, across a narrow air gap, to a rotating heat-transfer structure immersed in a surrounding medium, such as air," reads one description of the technology.

Another data center-related technology is power throttling of a collection of computing elements. The patent is for a way to control power usage of a processor in a computer. The technology is comprised of a processor communicating with a local control device, a power source feeding both the processor and the control device, and a sensor that measures the processor's power consumption.

Start-ups can license any of the DoE's 15,000 patents for US$1,000 each ÔÇô an average savings of $10,000 to $50,000 on upfront fees. Companies will have between 2 May and 15 December, 2011, to submit business plans for commercialization of the technologies they choose to participate in the contest.