Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative: Increasing American Competitiveness Through Innovation

Manufacturing is making a resurgence in America.  Companies such as Whirlpool –  an ENERGY STAR partner – Ford, General Electric, and Dow are increasingly moving manufacturing back to the United States, resulting in domestic jobs that are revitalizing communities throughout the country. Whirlpool, which manufactures energy-efficient appliances such as washers and dryers, recently announced it is expanding operations at a plant in Greenville, Ohio, creating 400 jobs over the next few years.

Economists see this “reshoring” trend as an encouraging sign, signaling that companies increasingly value locating their manufacturing operations for clean energy products and technologies right here in the United States.  Boosting American competitiveness in the production of clean energy products is also a key goal of the Energy Department’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI), a collaborative effort between the federal government, American manufacturers, national laboratories, research institutions, state and local governments, and other important stakeholders. 

Over the last several years, global investment in the clean energy sector has risen nearly fivefold, growing from $54 billion in 2004 to $269 billion worldwide in 2012. With this growth, comes opportunity for the United States to become the world leader in creating the clean energy manufacturing industries of today – and tomorrow.  CEMI is helping maximize this opportunity through several key approaches aimed at speeding innovative ideas from labs and universities into commercial production at a rapid pace.

These include several efforts across Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy technology offices:

• Manufacturing R&D projects that aim to reduce cost and improve performance of clean energy products and the materials used to make them.  These include:
  • The SunShot Initiative’s efforts to improve manufacturing of solar energy systems;
  • The Wind Program’s work on taller wind energy towers; and
  • The Vehicle Technologies Office’s efforts to develop fabrication technologies for light-weight materials. 
•  Innovative manufacturing projects in the Advanced Manufacturing Office are developing transformational manufacturing processes and materials across a range of technologies.
• Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institutes, supported by the Advanced Manufacturing Office, are public-private partnerships that serve as regional hubs of manufacturing technology development, in line with the proposed National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.  These hubs aim to make American manufacturers more competitive, while encouraging investment in new transformative industries in the United States. In 2012, the Energy Department and the Department of Defense partnered with other agencies to launch a pilot Manufacturing Innovation Institute on additive manufacturing in Youngstown, Ohio.  Following this pilot, the Energy Department selected the founding partners of the first Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute with a focus on next-generation power electronics. The Department also released a solicitation for a Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute related to composite materials and structures.
• The Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory provides the manufacturing community affordable access to advanced equipment and virtual tools for rapidly demonstrating new manufacturing technologies and optimizing critical processes in additive manufacturing and carbon fiber production.
•  Industrial Assessment Centers offer no-cost energy-efficiency assessments for manufacturers, while training the next generation of energy-efficiency experts.
• Better Plants Challenge, which engages U.S. manufacturers to reduce their energy use by 25% over 10 years though energy-efficiency upgrades and energy management strategies.

The Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative is also reaching out to the nation’s clean energy community through a series of regional summits to develop new ideas for advancing U.S. clean energy manufacturing competitiveness.  Provide your input at the Western Regional Summit on April 17 in San Francisco, California.  The event is no-cost and open to the public.

Continuing and expanding these efforts will help the United States lead in clean energy manufacturing, grow our economy and protect the environment. Learn more about CEMI and find tools, data, and other clean energy manufacturing resources.