News Release from the DOE - Energy Efficiency Training Centers

President Highlights Smart Energy Training at U. of Miami

February 24, 2012 

 President Barack Obama tours the University of Miami Industrial Assessment Center in Miami, Florida, Feb. 23, 2012. The IAC is where students learn how to become industrial energy-efficiency experts as they help small to mid-sized manufacturers reduce their energy costs. | Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy.

Ginny Simmons

Managing Editor for Energy.gov, Office of Public Affairs

What have IACs accomplished to date?

• 15,000 energy assessments have helped save enough energy to power 5.5 million American homes.
• Participating manufacturers have saved more than $5.6 billion in energy costs.
• 3,000 students have graduated -- with more than 60 percent going on to careers in the energy industry.

During his visit to Florida, yesterday, President Obama highlighted the University of Miami's Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) as a smart and important piece of the administration's "all-of-the-above" approach to domestic energy sources.

In September of last year, the Energy Department gave 24 universities a total of $30M in grants to help train the next generation of industrial energy-efficiency experts. Each school will receive $200,000 to $300,000 per year for up to 5 years to train students on core energy management concepts. The teams conduct energy assessments in a broad range of manufacturing facilities, which prepare students to compete in today's economy while helping local companies and factories reduce energy waste, save money, and become more competitive.

As President Obama said yesterday, "We're taking a step that will make it easier for companies to save money by investing in energy solutions that have been proven here at the University of Miami -- new lighting systems; advanced heating and cooling systems that can lower a company's energy bills and make them more competitive."

Since the Industrial Assessment Center program began in 1976, university teams have conducted more than 15,000 energy assessments at U.S. manufacturing plants nationwide. To date, more than 3,000 students have graduated from the Industrial Assessment Center program, with more than 60 percent going on to careers in the energy industry. Critically, these assessments have helped save over 530 trillion BTUs of energy -- enough to meet the energy needs of 5.5 million American homes -- and have helped participating manufacturers save more than $5.6 billion in energy costs.

If you'd like to apply for an assessment, you can contact one of the 24 schools across the country that currently participate in the IAC Program.

Over $12 Million to Spur Solar Energy Innovation

News release from the Department of Energy:

Energy Department Announces Over $12 Million to Spur Solar Energy Innovation

February 8, 2012 - 1:53pm

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As part of the Obama Administration’s blueprint for an American economy built to last, today U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced over $12 million to speed solar energy innovation from the lab to the marketplace through the Energy Department’s SunShot Incubator program. The funding will accelerate American innovation in solar energy and manufacturing by supporting advancements in hardware, reductions in soft costs, and the development of pilot manufacturing and production projects.

“Investments in American energy and manufacturing are critical building blocks for an American economy built to last,” said Secretary Chu. “The SunShot Incubator program fosters the innovative small businesses that will rapidly bring technological advances to market and pioneer a new era in American energy.”

The SunShot Incubator program helps launch new startups and business units within existing companies to accelerate the innovative solar technology development. Since 2007, DOE has invested $60 million through the Incubator in promising technologies as they are brought from the lab to the marketplace. These investments have catalyzed $1.6 billion in private sector support. The federal investment in these projects has been leveraged at a rate of more than 26-to-1.

The funding opportunity announced today builds on the SunShot Incubator program’s history of successful partnerships. Nearly forty companies have participated in the Incubator, including Colorado-based PrimeStar. In 2007, DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and PrimeStar Solar announced a cooperative R&D agreement to transition NREL’s cadmium telluride solar technology to commercial production. PrimeStar also received a $3 million Incubator award that year to commercialize its highly-efficient, low-cost photovoltaic solar panels based on the technology pioneered by NREL. Today, PrimeStar is owned by GE, which has announced a $600 million investment in the company and the construction of a large-scale manufacturing plant in Colorado that will employ more than 350 American workers to produce state-of-the-art solar panels. Through the Department’s SunShot Incubator program, these types of investments help early-stage companies overcome barriers to bring innovative solar technologies to market faster.

Today’s SunShot Incubator funding will support innovations in the development of hardware and non-hardware approaches from the proof-of-concept stage to prototype demonstration, including advances in photovoltaics, concentrating solar power and power electronics, as well as streamlined permitting, inspection and financing approaches, and to shorten the timeline for awardees to transition innovative prototypes produced at lab-scale into pilot and eventually full-scale manufacturing, production, or deployment. Each of the investments will require significant cost-share commitments from the awardees.

Applications are due on April 9, 2012. For more information and application requirements for the Funding Opportunity Announcement, please visit the Funding Opportunity Exchange website.

Launched in February 2011, DOE’s SunShot Initiative funds competitive research to make solar energy systems faster, easier, and cheaper for America’s homeowners, businesses and utilities to generate clean, renewable energy. The collaborative national effort aims to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade. Achieving this goal will drive widespread adoption of solar energy technologies, fortify the U.S. leadership in the global clean energy race, spur new industries, and create jobs across the nation. For more information, visit the SunShot Initiative website.

DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy accelerates development and facilitates deployment of energy efficiency and renewable technologies and market-based solutions that strengthen U.S. energy security, environmental quality, and economic vitality.

Energy Dept. & Volvo Build More Efficient Trucks & Mfg. Plants

News release from the U.S. Department of Energy:

Energy Department, Volvo Partnership Builds More Efficient Trucks and Manufacturing Plants

January 27, 2012 

Washington, D.C. –Today, Acting Under Secretary of Energy Arun Majumdar joined with North Carolina Congressman Howard Coble (NC-6) to tour the Volvo Group’s truck headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and highlight the blueprint for an America built to last laid out by President Obama in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The Department of Energy is partnering with companies like the Volvo Group to help harness American ingenuity to commercialize and deploy cutting-edge trucking technologies that will help boost the competitiveness of the U.S. auto and manufacturing industry, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create jobs for American workers.

“Earlier this week in his State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a blueprint for a stronger American economy based on a resurgence in American manufacturing and innovations in the way we use energy,” said Dr. Majumdar. “Companies like the Volvo Group that are pursuing energy efficiency in their operations, putting Americans to work, and building more fuel-efficient vehicles underscore how investments in clean energy technology are helping to secure America’s future economic prosperity.”

In partnership with the Energy Department, the Volvo Group is helping to lead the industry to advance innovative clean energy vehicle technologies and energy-efficient manufacturing. Through the Department’s SuperTruck program, the Volvo Group was awarded $19 million – which the company is matching dollar for dollar – to improve the efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles like the Mack and Volvo Trucks. Volvo Group has also embraced manufacturing efficiency as part of the DOE’s Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, pledging to reduce the energy intensity of its manufacturing plants with assistance and guidance from the Energy Department. These steps to become more energy-efficient will reduce operating costs at the facility, improving the competitiveness of the company’s products and manufacturing plants.

Dr. Majumdar and Congressman Coble were hosted by Dennis Slagle, Executive Vice President of Volvo Group Trucks Sales & Marketing - Americas, on the tour of the Volvo Group’s Technical Center, which is in the midst of an $8 million expansion.

The Volvo Group’s award was one of four Energy Department-sponsored SuperTruck development projects, which focus on increasing the fuel efficiency of Class 8 trucks – better known as 18-wheelers – by 50 percent.  To achieve this goal, companies like the Volvo Group are developing and improving vehicle technologies in engine efficiency, aerodynamics, waste heat recovery,  and hybridization, among other approaches.  Through the SuperTruck program, the Energy Department expects fuel economy increases from 6.5 miles per gallon to 9.75 miles per gallon – saving long-haul truckers more than $15,000 per truck per year in fuel costs.

Class 8 trucks represent only 4 percent of the on-road vehicles in America, but are responsible for almost 20 percent of the country’s on-road fuel consumption.  Implementation of SuperTruck technologies will not only lessen the nation’s dependence on petroleum, but also improve the global competitiveness of U.S. truck manufacturers.

While Volvo is building more efficient vehicles, the company is also improving the energy efficiency of the manufacturing plants that make them. In December 2009, the company joined the Department of Energy’s Save Energy Now LEADER initiative, now known as the Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, to begin an ambitious effort to significantly reduce the energy intensity of its operations as a way to increase competitiveness. Since then, Volvo’s New River Valley plant, located in Dublin, Virginia, has implemented a range of measures with guidance from the Department’s technical experts that reduced its energy intensity by almost 30 percent in just one year. Embracing energy efficiency measures helped Volvo cut costs and keep operations—and jobs—for its truck manufacturing business here in the United States.

Volvo Truck Corporation is one of the leading heavy truck and engine manufacturers in the world. Volvo Trucks manufactures a line of Class 8 trucks, and is known as a major innovator in the heavy-vehicle industry, selling products in more than 180 markets worldwide.

As Electric Vehicles Take Charge, Costs Power Down

From blog of U.S. Dept. of Energy:

As Electric Vehicles Take Charge, Costs Power Down

January 13, 2012 

  

Thanks to a cost-sharing project with the Energy Department, General Motors has been able to develop the capacity to build electric and hybrid motors internally. That capacity has made cars like the upcoming Chevy Spark EV (above) possible. | Image courtesy of General Motors.

Patrick B. Davis

Vehicle Technologies Program Manager

The record number of electric-drive vehicles on the floor of Detroit’s North American International Auto Show this week sends a clear message – the American auto industry is dedicated to driving innovation and delivering advanced vehicles to consumers here and around the world. We’re working with them every step of the way to help make that vision a reality. One of the keys to translating the trade show excitement around electric vehicles into widespread consumer adoption is driving down costs, and one area that continues to be a focus across the industry is reducing the cost of electric motors.

In addition to further research and development, increasing the domestic manufacturing capacity of electric motors is one of the keys to accomplishing this. Upping capacity will not only help meet growing consumer demand, but also help drive down the cost of both the motors and the vehicles that use them.

To help achieve this goal, the Energy Department has undertaken a variety of projects with industry partners to find innovative ways to design and manufacture electric motors. On one such project, the Department teamed with Delphi Automotive Systems in an effort to reduce the cost, size and weight of electric motors by using patented semiconductor packaging technology. The result of this cost-sharing partnership is new packaging that is smaller, lighter weight and allows more power to be produced than previous methods.
Additionally, Delphi also received a competitively-awarded $89.3 million award under the Recovery Act to expand its manufacturing of power electronics for electric-drive vehicles. Delphi is matching these funds dollar-for-dollar and the funding has allowed them to retool a formerly vacant manufacturing facility for the project and build a new testing and engineering laboratory. The result? Delphi is currently increasing production of their power electronics and already has enough orders on file to account for total production through 2015.

Delphi is just one example of the competitively awarded, cost-sharing projects that the Department is undertaking with automakers and their suppliers. A similar projects has allowed Magna E-Car to manufacture the electric vehicle motor control unit and motor for the recently unveiled Ford Focus EV in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Ford’s Van Dyke Transmission Plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, is building the electric drive transaxles for the 2013 Focus C-MAX hybrid and plug-in hybrid models. And GM, thanks to $105 million in Energy Department support, now has the capacity to develop and manufacture electric motors for hybrid and electric vehicles such as the recently announced Chevy Spark.

These cost-sharing projects are helping to turn innovative advanced vehicles that might have otherwise been merely trade show concepts into a consumer reality. They are creating jobs while lowering costs for consumers and pushing the auto industry forward -- helping American manufacturers lead the way with innovative, efficient vehicles. So while cutting-edge cars like the Ford Focus Electric and the Chevy Spark might be relegated to the auto show floor for the moment, it won’t be long before they become a familiar sight on car lots and roads across the country.