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Yesterday, the US Department of Energy announced up to $52.5 million for DOE’s Industrial Assessment Centers that help American manufacturers and wastewater treatment facilities improve their efficiency, save money, and reduce their carbon footprint. These university-based training programs also create a pipeline for students looking to join the growing clean energy economy.
The funding will be distributed through DOE’s Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs), which are university-based programs that train students and offer no-cost efficiency improvement recommendations to small- and medium-sized manufacturing facilities. As part of the assessment process, participating students and faculty make recommendations for energy and water savings, waste reduction, productivity improvements, cybersecurity, and smart manufacturing opportunities for qualifying facilities—all while measuring their impact on greenhouse gas emissions. To date, the IAC program has provided nearly 20,000 assessments and more than 145,000 recommendations for improvement measures. Assessments typically identify more than $130,000 in potential annual savings opportunities.