EERE’s mission is to accelerate the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies and solutions to equitably transition America to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050, and ensure the clean energy economy benefits all Americans, creating good paying jobs for the American people—especially workers and communities impacted by the energy transition and those historically underserved by the energy system and overburdened by pollution.
Most of EERE's new investments directly support deployments or demonstrations of technologies that show viable pathways for achieving EERE’s five programmatic priorities:
- Decarbonizing the electricity sector.
- Decarbonizing transportation across all modes: air, sea, rail, and road.
- Decarbonizing the industrial sector.
- Reducing the carbon footprint of buildings.
- Decarbonizing the agriculture sector, specifically focused on the nexus between energy and water.
Our work will also be driven by four crosscutting principles.
- Building the clean energy economy in a way that benefits all Americans. We must address environmental injustices that disproportionately affect communities of color, low-income communities, and indigenous communities.
- Fostering a diverse STEM workforce. We need to increase awareness of clean energy job opportunities at minority-serving institutions and ensure that organizations receiving EERE funding are thinking through diversity and equity in their own work.
- Developing more robust workforce training opportunities to build a pipeline for permanent, good-paying jobs for the clean energy workforce.
- Working closely and learning from state and local governments.