What are Cross-Sector Technologies?
A significant number of energy efficiency and process optimization opportunities are common across all industrial subsectors. For example, nearly all industrial operations consume water and produce wastewater. Innovations in energy and water use represent significant opportunities to increase energy efficiency and reduce manufacturing costs across the industrial sector.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Industrial Technologies Office (ITO) supports several research topics where research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) can lead to energy reductions and process improvements in both the short- and long-term across all industrial sectors while increasing the global competitiveness of U.S. industry.
Why is RD&D of Cross-Sector Technologies Important?
RD&D of cross-cutting industrial topics creates opportunities to unlock energy savings and increase efficiency across many industrial subsectors while also helping to grow our economy, secure our domestic supply chains, and provide jobs for American workers across the country. Each of these topics has the potential to provide significant improvements in energy use across all industrial subsectors and deliver near-term and future reductions as technologies develop.
Research Topics
Process heating, or thermal processing, is essential to manufacture a wide variety of industrial and consumer products. Yet, process heating represents the largest energy use in the manufacturing sector, accounting for 1/3 of the sector's total energy use in 2018.
Direct energy use for process heating in the manufacturing sector includes fuel combustion (66%), steam (30%), and electricity (4%). When the fuel used to generate steam and electricity is considered, at least 90% of energy used for process heat is derived from combustion. The Thermal Process Intensification Workshop Report highlights the significant opportunities across several industries to improve the efficiency of thermal processing. Learn more about transformative process heating technologies.
The U.S. industrial sector heavily relies on fuel combustion to provide heat for many operations, including direct firing in furnaces to melt materials such as metals, in kilns to calcine limestone, in boilers to produce steam, and many others. While primarily sourced from a limited number of existing fuels, availability for a broader range of less common fuels such as hydrogen is growing. Learn more about onsite fuels and energy sources.
Water is used in all phases of energy production, from helping to generate electricity by keeping power plants cool to enabling the reliable use of energy sources like hydropower, geothermal, and bioenergy. Water is also a key component of many essential industrial processes.
Water systems consume energy to pump water from aquifers, desalinate groundwater, process sludge during wastewater treatment, and distribute water. Non-traditional water sources have more impurities that must be removed before they're fit for use, requiring more energy than traditional sources such as groundwater and surface water. RD&D into energy efficient water and wastewater management can help expand access to water resources. Learn more about water and energy RD&D.
Innovative industrial efficiency technologies require less energy to perform the same or similar function as current technologies. ITO supports the RD&D of technologies that reduce primary energy demand and minimize losses.
While energy losses cannot be brought to zero, limiting losses and reducing final energy demand are important pathways to reduce costs and make U.S. industry more competitive. Learn more about industrial efficiency technologies.
What are ITO's Goals?
The Cross-Sector Technologies subprogram funds applied R&D and pilot-scale demonstrations to identify and advance the next generation of industrial technologies to provide, transform, and store energy. Key goals include:
- Increasing efficiency and waste heat recovery in industrial process heating.
- Improving cost-competitiveness of separations and treatments.
- Securing grid reliability through efficient industrial electricity use and increased flexibility.
- Increasing efficiency, affordability, and safety in clean water supply and treatment.
Cross-sector approaches include RD&D on components, equipment, systems, and technologies with applications in multiple industrial sectors, and the integration of technology in industry-specific conditions.