Investing in Innovation to Increase the Competitiveness of American Industry

As we celebrate Manufacturing Week throughout the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), it’s important to recognize how we’re working to ensure the foundational role that manufacturing plays in today’s world. The U.S. industrial sector is central to our nation’s economy. It provides us with the products society relies on every day—from the cement used to build our roads, to the steel and iron in our buildings, railways, and appliances. 

As the needs of our economy evolve, and opportunities emerge in global industrial markets, U.S. industry can meet this moment by innovating, scaling, and manufacturing these products in a more efficient way that increases U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and improves the health and well-being of Americans.

Optimizing the U.S. industrial sector is one of the most significant growth opportunities of the twenty-first century. At the Department's Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO), we're seizing this opportunity with strategic investments that will drive innovation, lower costs, increase U.S. global competitiveness, and create good-paying jobs for American workers across the country. 

Investing in American Ingenuity & Innovation

IEDO is committed to providing an abundance of reliable, affordable energy for all Americans and ensuring U.S. manufacturers have the tools, resources, and technologies needed to ensure the global competitiveness of the U.S. industrial base.  

This is where IEDO comes in. The office thrives at the intersection of foundational research and commercialization and is prioritizing and accelerating the adoption of new technologies while driving the innovation needed to realize our reliable, affordable, abundant energy future. We are investing in fundamental research, development, and initial pilot-scale demonstration projects (RD&D)—and coupling those investments with the targeted education, workforce development, and technical assistance required to increase adoption and support a globally competitive U.S. manufacturing sector

At IEDO, we're asking ourselves tough questions—how do we redesign steel furnaces to increase productivity and energy efficiency? Or reimagine foundational materials like Portland cement that produce carbon dioxide when they are manufactured?

To answer these critical questions with innovative solutions, we're supporting the development of innovative projects to increase the competitiveness and resiliency of American energy and American industry. These projects and the resulting innovative technologies were shaped through on-the-ground stakeholder engagement with U.S. manufacturers.

In June, IEDO supported 40 projects across 21 states that will advance technologies to increase the competitiveness of American industry and help create good-paying jobs. We also announced the Department's seventh Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute in May. The Electrified Processes for Industry Without Carbon (EPIXC) Institute out of Arizona State University will foster an innovation ecosystem around electrification of industrial heat and advance the goals of the Department's Industrial Heat Shot. In August, we supported 10 projects to increase the efficiency of the nation's water treatment sector.

Partnering with Industry to Increase Efficiency

Even for solutions that exist today, like energy efficiency or onsite energy, increasing adoption of new technologies on America’s factory floors is no easy feat. The industrial sector is complex and diverse—and implementing solutions looks different for every industrial subsector, facility, and industrial process.

That’s why we’re working directly with industry to tailor solutions and ensure facilities and businesses have the technical expertise to deploy these new, best-in-class technologies while also training the workforce. Through our Better Plants Program, we’ve helped 270 manufacturers save more than $10 billion in energy costs.

Our new network of Onsite Energy Technical Assistance Partnerships will help industrial facilities integrate clean energy technologies—such as battery storage, geothermal, industrial heat pumps, and more—directly into their buildings and plants to help them  increase efficiency and reduce operating costs.

These workforce development and technical assistance programs will help prepare the existing 11.4 million American manufacturing workers and the future workforce for our globally competitive U.S. industrial sector and our abundant energy future.

An All-Hands-on-Deck Approach

The challenges we face and opportunities that abound are too vast to address alone. To reach our goals across the industrial sector, we need a collaborative approach to developing innovative energy technologies and energy investments at every stage of the innovation pipeline. This will be an all-hands-on-deck approach and IEDO is working in lockstep with offices across DOE on department-wide efforts.

We’re collaborating with the department's Industrial Demonstrations Program to ready our most transformative industrial technologies for at-scale demonstration and deployment on America’s factory floors.

As IEDO's new Director, I'm excited to take the helm of this incredible organization. This is a critical moment for our nation and our planet, and I'm confident that the office and its passionate and talented team are more than up for the challenge.

Through bold thinking and action, we will move the country from what was to what will be. At IEDO, we believe that our energy future will be built on a foundation of materials manufactured here, in the United States. With the help of you—our partners, stakeholders, and fellow Americans—we will continue to transform ideas into real-world impact and make big strides on the road to a more competitive and resilient U.S. industrial sector.