Each Hub, to be funded at up to $122 million over five years, will bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers in an effort to speed research and shorten the path from scientific discovery to technological development and commercial deployment of highly promising energy-related technologies.

 Secretary Chu said;

“Given the urgency of our challenges in both energy and climate, we need to do everything we can to mobilize our Nation’s scientific and technological talent to accelerate the pace of innovation. The DOE Energy Innovation Hubs represent a new, more proactive approach to managing and conducting research. We are taking a page from America’s great industrial laboratories in their heyday. Their achievements—from the transistor to the information theory that makes modern telecommunications possible—are evidence that we can build creative, highly-integrated research teams that can accomplish more, faster, than researchers working separately.”

This strategy includes three new initiatives which are designed to complement each other:

1.The first approach is the Energy Frontier Research Centers launched by the Department’s Office of Science to support multi-year, multi-investigator scientific collaborations focused on overcoming hurdles in basic science that block transformational discoveries.

2.The second approach is spearheaded by the Department’s recently-formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (“ARPA-E”), which uses a highly entrepreneurial funding model that supports America’s passionate energy innovators to explore high-risk, high-reward potentially transformative technologies that are too risky for industry to fund.

3.The third novel funding model, Energy Innovation Hubs, will establish larger, highly integrated teams ideally working under one roof, conducting high-risk, high-reward research and working to solve priority technology challenges that span work from basic research to engineering development to commercialization readiness.

The three DOE Energy Innovation Hubs will focus on:

•production of fuels directly from sunlight;

•improving energy-efficient building systems design; and

•computer modeling and simulation for the development of advanced nuclear reactors.

The Department will provide $22 million in the first year for the establishment of each Hub and up to $25 million per year for the following four years to support the operations of each Hub—for a total award of up to $122 million per Hub. Important information on the DOE’s Hub implementation plan and strategy for managing the Hubs can be found on the Energy Innovation Hubs website: http://hubs.energy.gov.

“Energy efficiency isn’t just low-hanging fruit; it’s fruit lying on the ground. We have the tools to reduce energy use at home and at work and to provide huge savings to families and businesses on their energy bills. But use of these technologies has been far too limited because we lack the simple and effective ways for people to access them,” said Chu.

“The ‘Retrofit Ramp-Up’ program will support large-scale models that can open new energy efficiency opportunities to whole neighborhoods, towns, and, eventually, entire states,” continued Chu. “The Recovery Act will allow innovative communities to demonstrate a variety of sustainable business models that can be replicated across the country.”

The Request for Information (RFI) being issued today is for competitively selected local energy efficiency projects. This competitive portion of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program will target community-scale retrofit projects that make significant, long-term impacts on energy use and can serve as national role models for grassroots energy efficiency efforts. The DOE is seeking public comment on this newly funded program under the Recovery Act. Public comment ends on Sept. 28, 2009.

The DOE is accepting feedback on both the competitively-selected portion of the EECBG program for up to $390 million for neighborhood-scale building retrofits, as well as up to $64 million for local governments that were not eligible to receive the formula grants announced earlier this year. The EECBG program empowers local communities to make strategic investments to meet the nation’s long-term goals for energy independence and leadership on climate change.

This first topic area under the funding solicitation will target a select number of innovative programs that are structured to provide whole-neighborhood building energy retrofits. These will be projects that demonstrate a sustainable business model for providing cost-effective energy upgrades for a large percentage of the residential, commercial, and public buildings in a specific community. Possible approaches could include innovative partnerships between the public and private sector, utility retrofit and audit programs, alternative financing, retail partnerships, and others. The DOE will award up to $390 million for these projects.

The second topic area for up to $64 million is reserved for cities, counties and state-recognized Indian tribes that were not eligible to receive population-based formula grant allocations from DOE under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program. These funds are intended to help expand local energy efficiency efforts and reduce energy use in the commercial, residential, transportation, manufacturing, or industrial sectors.

“The aim of the ‘Retrofit Ramp-Up’ program is to jump-start an industry that makes energy efficiency savings easy to access and available to everyone. By encouraging partnerships between local governments and effective private enterprises, we hope tune-ups for buildings will become as accepted as tune-ups for cars. These efforts will save Americans millions of dollars, reduce carbon pollution, and create new green jobs,” said Chu.

View the Request for Information. Public comment is requested by Sept. 28, 2009. The funding opportunity announcement is expected to be released in early October, following the public comment period.

 Under the MOU, the United States and China will establish an ongoing dialogue on what they are doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to advance international climate negotiations in preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. The MOU was one of the results of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which was held in Washington, D.C., on Monday and Tuesday.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the signing ceremony made these remarks;

Both of our countries understand the importance of clean energy for our economies and for our security.Both of us understand the imperative of fighting climate change. What the U.S. and China do in the coming decades will help shape the fate of the world. I’m heartened by the progress we are making. Under President Obama’s leadership, the United States has invested billions of dollars in clean energy and has taken bold steps to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our vehicles.

In recent years, China has taken impressive steps to improve energy efficiency, deploy renewable energy, and invest in clean energy technologies. Both our countries, however, must do more. And that’s why today’s agreement is so important. Today’s agreement should send a clear signal that the United States and China are ready to work together on clean energy and climate change. It sets the stage for what I hope will be many years of close cooperation.” See the MOU, the remarks at the signing ceremony, and the joint press release on the first round of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue