Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (2020 Presidential transition)

Book 3 - Organization Overview
Entire 2020 DOE Transition book As of October 2020

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) plays a critical role in advancing DOE’s mission to ensure America’s security and prosperity by developing affordable renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies (investing in research and development activities); reducing regulatory burdens; and improving grid reliability and resilience.

Mission Statement

EERE promotes affordable and reliable energy to enhance America’s economic growth and energy security through technology development in the energy efficiency, renewable power, and sustainable transportation sectors.

EERE is accelerating the development and adoption of sustainable transportation technologies; increasing the generation of electric power from renewable resources; improving the energy efficiency of homes, buildings, and industries; stimulating the growth of a thriving domestic clean energy manufacturing industry; enabling the integration of clean electricity into a reliable, resilient, and efficient grid; and enabling a high-performing, results-driven culture through effective management approaches and processes.

EERE has stewardship responsibility for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, which has 2,685 employees and a $492,000,000 annual operating budget. NREL’s mission is to develop clean energy and energy efficiency technologies and practices; advance related science and engineering; and provide knowledge and innovations to integrate energy systems at all scales.

Budget

Fiscal Year	Budget
FY 2019 enacted	$2,379,000,000
FY 2020 enacted	$2,777,277,000
FY 2021 request	$719,563,000

Human Resources

FY 2020 authorized full-time equivalents (FTEs): 675-700 FTEs per FY 2020 Appropriations language located in Washington, D.C., and Golden, Colorado. Within this total, EERE also supports 44 FTEs at the National Energy Technology Laboratory who provide project management and procurement support.

History

The statutory foundation for EERE is authorized by United States Code, Title 15 (Commerce and Trade) and Title 42 (Public Health and Welfare) which specifies applicable programs, activities, goals, and objectives.

Functions

EERE is divided into three Technology Sectors— Energy Efficiency, Renewable Power, and Sustainable Transportation—as well as a Corporate Sector, which includes Mission-Critical Support Operations.

Energy Efficiency Sector

EERE’s Energy Efficiency portfolio advances American energy competitiveness through the pursuit of research and development (R&D) targeted at high impact technology areas such as critical materials; plastics recycling; manufacturing processes; grid- interactive building systems; advanced lighting; space heating and cooling; and building envelopes. The overall goal of the energy efficiency portfolio is to strengthen the body of knowledge that enables businesses, industry, and the federal government to improve the affordability, energy productivity, and resiliency of our homes, buildings, and manufacturing sectors. This sector is divided into four main functions, including:

Advanced Manufacturing

The Advanced Manufacturing Office supports R&D focused on advancing and creating new understanding of underlying technologies, materials, and processes relevant to the productive use of energy in manufacturing, as well as the competitive manufacturing of energy related products. This office supports the development of technologies to enable domestic supply of critical materials related to energy applications, substitutes for critical materials, and technologies for reuse and recycling of critical materials.

Building Technologies

The Buildings Technologies Office supports R&D of innovative building energy technologies such as lighting, space conditioning, refrigeration, windows, and envelope and their effective integration into smart, efficient, resilient, grid-interactive, affordable, and secure building systems. In support of the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, particular focus will be placed on building system interaction with the grid in terms of controllable loads and thermal energy storage technologies. Through the Better Buildings Initiative, the Building office fosters the accelerated adoption of energy efficient technologies and practices by attracting and establishing close, trusted relationships with key market leaders, and encourage private sector investment into energy efficient technologies. Finally, it supports DOE working with industry and stakeholders to meet requirements for statutorily- mandated efficiency standards and building energy codes determinations

Federal Energy Management Program

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) strengthens agencies’ ability and agility to manage their critical missions, and provides strategic energy management assistance for agencies to become resilient, efficient, and secure in support of Administration priorities for American energy dominance. FEMP strives to increase government accountability and development of a future- focused workforce. FEMP supplies agencies with the information, tools, and technical assistance they need to meet and track their energy-related requirements and goals through the following focus areas:

Strategic Programming and Integration Planning. Providing agencies with information and resources to help them develop strategic programs and plans to successfully reduce Federal energy and water use. FEMP also develops, analyzes, and shares information about Federal laws and requirements.
Facility and Fleet Optimization. Coordinating processes to integrate mission assurance with optimized and cost-effective facility and fleet operations. Specialty areas include strategic energy management; commissioning; data centers; Federal fleet management; guiding principles for sustainable Federal buildings; laboratories; metering; net zero energy, water, and waste; and operations and maintenance plans.
Federal Leadership and Engagement. Providing accountability on Federal agency and Government-wide energy and water performance; engaging agencies in interagency working groups and workforce development opportunities; and recognizing their efforts. Specialty areas include agency reporting and data; the annual Federal Energy and Water Management Awards; interagency working groups; training; and veteran internships.

Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs

The Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs’ mission is to facilitate strategic investments in the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and innovative practices across the United States by a wide range of government, community, and business stakeholders, in partnership with state and local organizations.

Renewable Power Sector

Through its Renewable Power portfolio, EERE will perform research to enable solar, wind, water, and geothermal industries to develop and ultimately deploy low-cost, novel power generation technologies. The overarching objective of the Renewable Power portfolio is to lower costs and improve the integration of renewable energy technologies with the grid. Research on improved integration is executed through the Energy Storage Grand Challenge and the Grid Modernization Initiative. Through investments in DOE National Laboratories, industry, and academia, the Renewable Power technology programs will continue to lead the world in developing domestic, clean, reliable energy choices in power generation, which strengthen the U.S. economy while increasing energy security. This sector is divided into the following functions:

The primary function of the Geothermal Technologies Office is to support R&D to strengthen the body of knowledge to support industry efforts to accelerate the development and deployment of innovative geothermal energy technologies. The program’s technology portfolio prioritizes R&D in three closely related geothermal categories: Hydrothermal, Enhanced Geothermal Systems, and Low Temperature.

Solar Energy Technologies

The Solar Energy Technologies Office funds R&D to improve the affordability and performance of solar technologies while supporting the reliability and resilience of the U.S. electric grid. Reflecting the recent and projected future growth in photovoltaic (PV) deployment, the program is placing a continued emphasis on addressing the challenges and opportunities related to integrating increasing penetrations of solar onto the electric grid. The office’s efforts include building the knowledge base upon which industry can achieve further reductions in the cost of solar electricity, promoting greater energy affordability.

Waterpower Technologies

The Waterpower Technologies Office conducts R&D to strengthen the body of scientific and engineering knowledge supporting industry efforts to develop new technologies that increase U.S. hydropower, and marine and hydrokinetic generation.

Wind Energy Technologies

The primary function of the Wind Energy Technologies Office is to drive innovation through research, development, and testing of advanced wind technologies. The portfolio focuses on land-based, offshore, and distributed wind, as well as integration of wind energy on the grid. The primary goal is cost reduction, while also informing market choices; ensuring the reliability, resilience, and security of wind power and the grid; exploring means for mitigating siting and environmental challenges; and nurturing a robust U.S. manufacturing sector and related workforce.

Sustainable Transportation Sector

EERE’s sustainable transportation portfolio supports comprehensive, analysis-based research strategies that ultimately enable industry to accelerate the development and widespread use of a variety of promising sustainable transportation technologies. Broadly, transportation programs within EERE pursue four key parallel solution pathways:

fuel diversification, replacing conventional fuels with cost-competitive, domestically produced alternatives;
vehicle efficiency, using less fuel to move people and freight;
energy storage, delivering durable, reliable, resilient, and affordable energy storage options across sectors; and
mobility energy productivity, improving the overall energy efficiency and efficacy of the transportation or mobility system. The pathways and activities also include those necessary to address statutory requirements and the supporting advanced data- driven, technical, economic, and interdisciplinary systems analyses critical to informing R&D investment priorities. This sector is divided into three main technologies:

Bioenergy Technologies

The Bioenergy Technologies Office focuses on R&D of transformative, sustainable bioenergy technologies that can support a growing bioeconomy. The office invests in development of technologies for producing cost-competitive advanced biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts from the nation’s abundant domestic, renewable biomass and waste resources.

Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies

The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office focuses on R&D that supports multisector partnership efforts to develop and deploy hydrogen and fuel cell technologies that are cost competitive with conventional technologies. The overarching program goal, supporting the DOE H2@Scale initiative, is to facilitate wide-spread adoption of hydrogen and fuel cells across sectors by reducing the cost and improving the performance/durability of fuel cells, as well as developing affordable and efficient technologies for hydrogen production, delivery, and storage.

Vehicle Technologies

The Vehicle Technologies Office funds research to develop new, affordable, efficient, and clean transportation options that increase domestic economic opportunity. This research will generate knowledge that industry can advance to deploy innovative energy technologies to support affordable, secure, reliable, and efficient transportation systems across America. The office currently focuses on new innovations in electrification to include: advanced battery technologies; advanced combustion engines and fuels (including co-optimized systems); advanced materials for lighter-weight vehicle structures and better powertrains; and energy efficient mobility technologies and systems (including automated and connected vehicles, as well as innovations in connected infrastructure for significant systems- level energy efficiency improvement).

Recent Organization Accomplishments

Led Significant Achievements in Promoting Security, Prosperity, and Energy Dominance Global investment in clean energy has increased substantially in response to the need to address security, prosperity, and energy dominance challenges and opportunities. EERE’s investment in R&D has supported the following successes:

Between 2010 and 2019, the average cost to utilities of power purchase agreements (PPAs) for utility scale photovoltaic electricity decreased by 83 percent, and the cost for wind PPAs between 2010 and 2018 decreased by 69 percent.
In the past 10 years, modeled battery costs for electric vehicles have dropped by 80 percent [to $169/kilowatt-hour (kWh)], and in the past year alone, EERE-sponsored R&D has helped drive a 2.6 percent energy intensity reduction among industry partners.
The Solar program met its 2020 goal for unsubsidized, utility-scale solar PV electricity of $0.06/kWh in 2017; three years ahead of schedule.
Achieved the 2020 cost target for offshore wind early, surpassing it by 3 cents per kilowatt-hour1 Following this milestone, WETO significantly adjusted its offshore LCOE targets downward2
Oversaw the expansion of renewable power, including a doubling of solar production from 2016 through 2019, and a 32 percent increase in wind production.

EERE supported researchers John B. Goodenough and M. Stanley Whittingham were recognized as Nobel laureates for their work in developing lithium-ion batteries. The development of lithium-ion batteries have resulted in numerous advancements in key industries such as mobile phones and plug-in electric vehicles.

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) set a new world record for solar conversion efficiency by fabricating a six-junction solar cell with an efficiency of nearly 50 percent.

Initiated the Plastics Innovation Challenge, which launched a comprehensive program to design new highly recyclable or biodegradable plastics; develop novel methods for deconstructing and upcycling existing plastic waste; and address plastic waste. Most recently, in March 2020, DOE announced the Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) funding opportunity and the launch of a BOTTLE Consortium focused on designing new plastics and recycling strategies, in collaboration with industry and academia

Launched the American-Made Challenges. DOE has invested more than $40,000,000 in 16 different American-Made prizes and competitions to advance energy innovation and American manufacturing.

Established the ReCell Battery Recycling R&D Center and launched the Lithium Ion Battery Recycling Prize to develop technologies to profitably capture 90 percent of all lithium-based battery technologies in the United States and recover 90 percent of the key materials from the collected batteries.

EERE created the Energy-Water Desalination Hub as part of the White House Water Security Grand Challenge, announcing nearly $100 million for the National Alliance for Water Innovation to address water security issues in the United States.

Reduced the cost of electrolyzers, which produce hydrogen from water and electricity, by 80 percent and automotive fuel cell costs by 60 percent in the past decade, while their durability quadrupled to over 120,000 miles. Funded the development of a renewable jet fuel used for the first time in a commercial flight from Orlando to London Gatwick, a blend of alcohol- to-jet fuel produced using LanzaTech and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory technology.

Rolled Back Unnecessary Regulations, supporting a presidential priority by refocusing energy conservation standards to increase consumer choice and save over $300 million for the American people.

Protected Consumer Lighting Choices by preventing more stringent regulations on common incandescent lightbulbs that would have essentially regulated those products out of existence, denying families the ability to make their own lighting choices.

Initiated the Sustainability in Manufacturing Partnership to help drive manufacturing productivity improvements, resulting in partners saving over $6 billion in energy costs.

Leadership Challenges

Recruitment and Retention

Like many government agencies, it is a challenge for EERE to recruit and retain the best staff. For leadership positions, EERE needs to identify high caliber experts in technology areas with executive level management experience. At the staff level, EERE established a “Great Place to Work” program, to attract and retain the best and brightest.

Remaining Agile and Staying Ahead of Cutting Edge Research and Development

EERE works with DOE’s national laboratories and private sector partners to find solutions to today’s and tomorrow’s technical challenges. Those solutions are vital to the EERE mission to create and sustain American leadership in the transition to a global clean energy economy.

Critical Events and Action Items

December 2020/January 2021

Critical Materials Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA): Next-Generation Technologies and Field Validation Award Selections.

This $30 million in funding is for research and development that focuses on field validation and demonstration, as well as next-generation extraction, separation, and processing technologies for critical materials. EERE, Advanced Manufacturing Office

January 2021

Water Security FOA: Research and Development for Advanced Water Resource Recovery Systems FOA Selections

This $20 million funding opportunity is to develop technology innovations that strengthen America’s water infrastructure and enable advanced water resource recovery systems that have the potential to be net energy positive. EERE, Advanced Manufacturing Office

FY 2020 Perovskite FOA Selections

This $20 million funding opportunity is to further advance perovskite research and development by funding projects in device and manufacturing R&D, as well as establishing an independent validation program. This FOA directly addresses FY 2020 appropriations language to further develop manufacturability of perovskites. EERE, Solar Energy Technologies Office

March 2021

Down Selection of the three Topic 1 awardees from the FY 2018 Generation 3 Concentrating Solar Power Systems FOA

Topic 1 of the FOA on Integrated Generation 3 CSP systems was broken down into three phases. Phases one and two were focused on further development on key components within the integrated system as well as finalization of the integrated system design. In Phase three, one awardee will be chosen to build a test facility that allows diverse teams of researchers, laboratories, developers, and manufacturers to test components and systems through a wide range of operating conditions necessary to advance the next generation of CSP technology. EERE, Solar Energy Technologies Office

TBD

Appliance Standards/Rulemaking.

There may be announcements related to two topics (showerheads and manufactured housing) in the coming months. If released, these announcements could draw significant interest from a diverse set of stakeholders, including members of Congress and the media EERE, Building Technologies Office