[1] ARPA-E was initially conceived by a report by the National Academies entitled Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.

[2] ARPA-E was officially created by the America COMPETES Act , authored by Congressman Bart Gordon,[3] within the United States Department of Energy (DOE) in 2007, though without a budget.

Among its main provisions, Section 16538 provides that ARPA-E shall achieve its goals through energy technology projects by doing the following: Like DARPA does for military technology, ARPA-E is intended to fund high-risk, high-reward research involving government labs, private industry, and universities that might not otherwise be pursued.

March 2, 2010 U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced ARPA-E's third round of funding opportunity in the areas of “Grid-Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage (GRIDS),” “Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT),” and “Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT).” April 29, 2010 Vice President Joe Biden announced 37 awarded projects under ARPA-E's second funding opportunity.

ARPA-E Program Directors then hold technical workshops to gather input from experts in various disciplines about current and upcoming technologies.

If successful, a new ARPA-E program is created, and a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is released soliciting project proposals.

The grants also supported energy efficiency technologies, including power electronics and engine-generators for advanced vehicles, devices for waste heat recovery, smart glass and control systems for smart buildings, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), reverse-osmosis membranes for water desalination, catalysts to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, improved fuel cell membranes, and more energy-dense magnetic materials for electronic components.

[16][17][18] Other awards went to projects that conducted research and development on a bioreactor with potential to produce gasoline directly from sunlight and carbon dioxide, and crystal growth technology to lower the cost of light emitting diodes.

For example, Harvard Medical School submitted a project under Electrofuels entitled "Engineering a Bacterial Reverse Fuel Cell," which focuses on development of a bacterium that can convert carbon dioxide into gasoline.

IMPAACT projects included the GE Global Research Center's "CO2 Capture Process Using Phase-Changing Absorbents," which focuses on a liquid that turns solid when exposed to carbon dioxide.

Like the second funding opportunity, ARPA-E solicited projects by category: Grid-Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage (GRIDS), Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT), and Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT).

ADEPT focused on investing in materials for fundamental advances in soft magnetics, high voltage switches, and reliable, high-density charge storage in three categories: 1) fully integrated, chip-scale power converters for applications including, but not limited to, compact, efficient drivers for solid-state lighting, distributed micro-inverters for photovoltaics, and single-chip power supplies for computers, 2) kilowatt scale package integrated power converters by enabling applications such as low-cost, efficient inverters for grid-tied photovoltaics and variable speed motors, and 3) lightweight, solid-state, medium voltage energy conversion for high power applications such as solid-state electrical substations and wind turbine generators.

BEET-IT solicited projects regarding energy efficient cooling technologies and air conditioners (AC) for buildings to save energy and reduce GHG emissions in the following areas: 1) cooling systems that use refrigerants with low global warming potential; 2) energy efficient air conditioning (AC) systems for warm and humid climates with an increased coefficient of performance (COP); and 3) vapor compression AC systems for hot climates for re-circulating air loads with an increased COP.

PETRO focused on projects that had systems to create biofuels from domestic sources such as tobacco and pine trees for half their current cost.

REACT funded early-stage technology alternatives that reduced or eliminated the dependence on rare earth materials by developing substitutes in two key areas: electric vehicle motors and wind generators.