Energy Department invests $70m to double US energy efficiency in manufacturing by 2030
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has announced $70m in funding for the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI), focusing on smart manufacturing in an attempt to transform the US' manufacturing industry and double the country's energy efficiency by 2030. The federal investment will be matched by private investment, and will support the research and development of new technologies that will decrease the deployment costs of technology, such as advanced sensors, controls, platforms and modeling in the manufacturing industry. CEMI will also use the funding to increase energy efficiency by at least 15% and improve energy productivity by at least 50%, as part of Obama's National Network for Manufacturing (NNMI) programme. 

Today, the Energy Department announced new research and development (R&D) efforts as part of the Department's Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI). These two efforts—a national laboratory-industry collaboration pilot and a competitive solicitation to leverage national labs' high-performance computing capabilities—will contribute to CEMI's work to strengthen U.S. clean energy manufacturing competitiveness.

"Our new Technologist in Residence pilot will strengthen our national labs' relationships with the private sector and streamline industry's access to the labs' capabilities and resources, attracting and engaging participation from America's most innovative leaders," said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy David Danielson. "These partnerships will enable industry and our labs to work together on high-impact collaborative R&D projects that advance additive manufacturing, increase efficiency through lightweight materials manufacturing, and conduct other R&D to enhance U.S. competitiveness."

Assistant Secretary Danielson today announced these new opportunities in clean energy manufacturing at CEMI's third-annual American Energy and Manufacturing Competitiveness Summit, jointly sponsored by the Council on Competitiveness. The summit features keynotes and panel discussions with Energy Department officials, national lab leaders, and top U.S. manufacturing CEOs celebrating the progress stakeholders have achieved since CEMI was launched three years ago.

Technologist in Residence Selections

Seven "technologist" pairs have been selected to receive $2.6 million to participate in the Energy Department's two-year Technologist in Residence (TIR) pilot to strengthen U.S. clean energy manufacturing competitiveness and enhance the commercial impact of its national laboratories. The competitively selected technologist pairs are comprised of one senior technical staff member from a national lab and another from a manufacturing company or consortium of companies. Through this pilot, each technologist pair will propose collaborative R&D efforts to support industry needs and will develop mechanisms to help interested companies more easily leverage the national lab network moving forward for strategic, long-term, collaborative R&D in clean energy technologies.

High Performance Computing Program

The Energy Department today announced up to $3 million available for qualified industry partners to participate in the High Performance Computing for Manufacturing Program (HPC4Mfg) led by Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. HPC4Mfg couples U.S. manufacturers with the national laboratories' world-class computational research and development expertise to address key challenges in U.S. manufacturing. The selected projects will apply modeling, simulation, and data analysis to industrial products and processes to lower production costs and shorten the time to market for new products—accelerating advanced clean energy technologies capable of keeping the United States at the forefront of innovation.

CEMI aims to increase American competitiveness in the production of clean energy products and boost U.S. manufacturing competitiveness across the board by increasing energy productivity. For more information about CEMI, please contact the CEMI team or visit CEMI's website. View this Energy 101 video to learn more about clean energy manufacturing.