This document, EERE’s first updated Strategic Plan in more than 10 years, formally codifies its high impact model for clean energy RDD&D and lays out its major strategic priorities and goals as an organization.
This article is from the EERE Strategic Plan with an introduction from Assistant Secretary Dr. David T. Danielson.
We are at a unique and exciting time in our energy history, where—for the first time—a wide variety of key clean energy technologies are showing the potential to be directly cost-competitive with traditional energy technologies. Accelerating cost reduction of these clean energy technologies through innovation presents a tremendous opportunity for the United States – to play a global leadership role in addressing climate change, and lead in the multi-trillion dollar economic opportunity presented by the rapidly emerging global clean energy economy. To ensure that we seize this once-in-a-generation leadership opportunity, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has developed a new
Strategic Plan and Implementing Framework.
This important 36-page document, our first updated Strategic Plan in more than 10 years, formally codifies EERE’s high impact model for clean energy RDD&D (Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment) and and clearly lays out our major strategic priorities and goals as an organization going forward. This Strategic Plan builds on EERE’s tremendous track record of success to date and sets us up for continued success as an organization into the future. The centerpieces of the plan are EERE’s new formal vision and mission statements. Our vision is a strong and prosperous nation powered by clean, affordable, and secure energy. Our mission is to create and sustain American leadership in the transition to a global clean energy economy.
Strategic Plan Specifics
These core organizational statements, as well as the Strategic Plan’s seven strategic goal sections and associated well-defined targeted success indicators, will serve as the blueprint for our continued success as a world-class government clean energy RDD&D organization in the critical years ahead. The EERE Strategic Plan provides an organization-wide complement to the critically important detailed Multi-Year Program Plans that each of our Technology Offices will continue to develop. EERE’s Strategic Plan is organized into seven strategic goal sections.
Products incorporating a New Technology must have a Total Cost that is less than the Total Cost of those with the Current or Incumbent Technology to be widely adopted by the market. Total Cost includes the Direct Cost of the product itself plus User Costs, including operations and maintenance, and unique infrastructure or system integration costs. It may also include unique Acquisition or “Soft” Costs such as financing, installation, regulation, training, or certification. Finally, it may include less tangible Perceived Costs resulting from customer concerns about the product’s inherently novel or unfamiliar technologies.
The first three strategic goals align with EERE’s technology sector: Sustainable Transportation, Renewable Power, and Energy Efficiency. The remaining goals are built around key cross-cutting EERE priorities: Clean Energy Manufacturing, Grid Modernization, Federal Sustainability Leadership, and a High-Performing Organization—that necessarily involve collaboration across all of EERE. In addition, within each strategic goal section of the Strategic Plan we have developed a set of EERE success indicators that define specific outcomes and deliverables that EERE is targeting to achieve in the years ahead (e.g., achieving a modeled battery cost of $125/kWh by 2022). The accomplishment of each goal and the associated success indicators will be implemented through the implementation of a well-defined set of strategies that are described within each strategic goal section of the Strategic Plan, with these strategies organized under the three phases of EERE’s investment approach: Reduce Cost and Improve performance Validate Technology and Reduce Risk and Reduce Market Barriers
Leading us into a Prosperous Energy Future EERE’s Strategic Plan was developed through hard work and extensive collaboration with EERE staff, our National Labs, and key external stakeholders. I want to wholeheartedly thank each and every one of you for the important contributions you have made to make this Strategic Plan a reality.
Download and read the Strategic Plan and to join the Department for a Strategic Plan webinar on Thursday, January 7, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. EST (click here to register) to learn more about the plan.
Much has changed since EERE published its last strategic plan in 2002. Each year, the clean energy industry has grown significantly, with tremendous strides in research and development, manufacturing, and deployment. However, much work remains to be done to realize our clean energy vision for America. It is my hope that EERE’s new Strategic Plan will help define the pathway for EERE and for the nation to achieve our bold goals and help ensure that the United States wins the global clean energy race. I look forward to working with you hand in hand as we move forward together to implement EERE’s Strategic Plan and to continue to usher in a clean energy revolution—both now and in the years to come.
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