March 17, 2008—DOE and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) last week to closely coordinate their research, development, and deployment of energy efficient technologies.
For DOE, the MOU was signed by both the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Alexander Karsner, and the Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Kevin Kolevar, while EPRI was represented by the Senior Vice President of Research and Development, Michael W. Howard and the Vice President of Power Delivery and Utilization, Arsha Mansoor. The MOU outlines a plan to use energy efficiency and electric energy demand response programs to help meet the nation’s electrical needs.
Specifically, the MOU describes DOE and EPRI’s intention to coordinate their research in energy efficiency and demand response in buildings, industrial processes, electrical devices, and appliances and to develop guidelines and methods that enable utilities to calculate their emissions reductions due to energy efficiency and demand response.
DOE and EPRI will also promote digital communication between the electric grid and buildings by testing and developing digital devices that will allow building energy management systems to communicate with smart-grid applications.
The two organizations will also analyze utilities’ energy efficiency efforts to catalogue the performance of energy efficiency technologies. EPRI will seek support for the effort from up to 50 electric utilities participating in EPRI’s new Energy Efficiency Initiative. For more information, see the Web site of the EPRI Energy Efficiency Initiative. The full text of the MOU can be downloaded in PDF format.
