Biofuels & Bioenergy

The Algae Testbed Public Private Partnership (ATP3), a multi-institutional effort funded by the US Department of Energy has established a network of operating testbeds that brings together world-class scientists, engineers and business executives whose goal it is to increase stakeholder access to high quality facilities by making available an unparalleled array of outdoor cultivation, downstream equipment, and laboratory facilities. ATP3 utilizes the same powerful combination of facilities, technical expertise to support TEA, LCA and resource modeling and analysis activities, helping to close critical knowledge gaps and inform robust analyses of the state of technology for algal biofuels. ATP3 includes testbed facilities at ASU’s Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation (AzCATI), and augmented by university and commercial facilities in Hawaii (Cellana), California (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), Georgia (Georgia Institute of Technology), and Florida (Florida Algae). ATP3 uses its facilities to perform coordinated long term cultivation trials producing robust, meaningful datasets from this regional network determining the effects of seasonal and geographic variations on algal cultivation productivity. This presentation will provide a summary of the ATP3 capabilities as a user facility as well as outreach efforts to connect both local and international customers with resources. It will also provide a summary of the experimental framework termed “Unified Field Studies” (UFS), with year-long cultivation experiments using two different algal strains across five distinct geographic regions using standardized mini-raceway ponds.