The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has formed an interagency committee to test and evaluate energy efficient technologies that can be deployed across the federal government and save taxpayer money.
The goal is to accelerate and integrate the use of innovative products and technologies in the federal government.
The Senior Executive Committee for Technology Deployment includes people from the DOE, General Services Administration and Department of Defense, and plans to add more members from other agencies.
The committee is tasked with developing processes that can test and evaluate potentially important technologies and then share information on their performance and economic value across the government. Early government adoption will help those technologies gain traction in commercial markets.
DOE also announced funding in several cleantech areas:
Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing: $54 million for 13 cost-shared projects to advance transformational technologies and materials that can help American manufacturers dramatically increase the energy efficiency of their operations and reduce costs.
These projects will develop cutting-edge processes and tools that reduce the energy needed to power manufacturing facilities. Examples of projects include reducing productions costs for carbon fiber, used in many clean energy products, and using waste heat to run operations.
Concentrating Solar Technology: $56 million over three years for 21 projects that advance CSP technologies, but subject to Congressional appropriations (hmmm). The projects support the SunShot Initiative which aims to solar cost-competitive with traditional energy sources by the end of the decade.
Projects speed innovations in the design of collectors, receivers and other components to lower costs, increase operating temperatures and improve the efficiency of CSP systems.
DOE also launched "America’s Most Affordable Rooftop Solar" competition with $10 million in prize money to the first three US teams that can install 5,000 rooftop solar PV systems at an average price of $2 per watt.
It’s also providing $8 million to nine small businesses to lower the cost of financing, permitting, and other "soft costs," which can amount to nearly half the cost of residential solar systems.
Energy Efficient Lighting: $7 million for three lighting projects that have the potential to lower the cost of manufacturing LEDs and OLEDs. These technologies have the potential to reduce demand for electricity by almost 50% by 2030, saving 30 billion a year. Why does the GOP hate this so much?
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