Building a Clean, Efficient Energy Supply
Renewable energy projects
$2.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
 Accelerate the construction of solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy generation facilities through a combination of loans and grants, creating jobs immediately and providing the United States with a clean energy supply for the future.
The United States has tremendous potential to harness its natural renewable resources to increase the supply of clean electricity - from the windy plains of the Midwest, to the sunny deserts of the Southwest, to the subterranean geothermal resources of the West. This set of initiatives will provide money to spur industry investment in shovel-ready projects that have been delayed due to the economic crisis, fund new projects to pilot emerging technologies, and support the scientists and engineers who will design the next generation of renewable energy technologies.
Smart Grid technology and transmission infrastructure
$4.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
 Build the transmission lines and grid technology infrastructure needed for a better, smarter grid to transport electricity – from the places renewable energy can be produced to the places it will be used.
Investments in improving the grid – with more than 3,000 miles of new or modernized transmission lines – will create jobs immediately and lower the number of power outages, increase reliability, and allow new renewable energy to come online. Deploying “Smart Meters” in homes and buildings across the country will make the energy grid cleaner, more efficient and more reliable. And the Department of Energy will invest in design and demonstration projects to improve on existing grid technologies. The Department will also invest in job training for the next generation of transmission workers to learn the skills needed to build and maintain a more efficient, smarter grid.
Clean fossil energy technology
$3.4 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
 Develop innovative carbon capture and storage technologies for clean coal, petroleum coke and other plants of the future, allowing our nation to safely use our abundant coal and fossil energy resources.
Coal is a cheap and abundant energy resource for the United States, currently providing more than 50 percent of the nation’s electricity supply. This set of initiatives will focus on research, development and demonstration of technologies to use coal more cleanly and efficiently. Investments will go both toward finding and testing new ways to produce energy from coal, such as gasification, and improving techniques to clean or capture and store the carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and industrial applications.
Next generation biofuels
$3.4 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
 Provide grants to accelerate the research and deployment of cellulosic biofuels technologies to provide a clean alternative to imported oil.
Working with industry, the Department of Energy will put scientists and researchers to work finding new ways to convert plant materials -- such as corn stalks and husks, switchgrass, and woodchips -- into fuel that can power our cars and trucks. Research investments will focus on innovations along the value chain – from addressing feedstock sustainability, to methods to break them down into basic chemical compounds and convert them into fuels. By co-investing with industry to build new cellulosic biofuel refineries to test these new technologies, we will take important steps toward transitioning the American vehicle fleet to ever cleaner alternatives.
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