Forty-six projects in 23 states, including ones to support carbon capture processes, are set to receive funding from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) to stimulate technological innovation and improve energy productivity. 

Department of Energy

The total funding, estimated at $123.6 million, along with $44.7 million in cost sharing by states, is designed to allow cutting edge products to be manufactured in the United States.

“Bolstering domestic manufacturing helps make the U.S. economy stronger,” said EERE Assistant Secretary Daniel R Simmons. “These projects will advance DOE’s goal of enhancing manufacturing competitiveness through technological innovation, while helping sustain American leadership in advanced manufacturing.”

The focus of the projects selected are in three different areas. 

The first 27 are to receive $69.4 million to create next-level manufacturing processes in energy-intensive and dependent industries. Those industries include steel manufacturing, drying, machine learning, additive manufacturing and ceramic matrix composite production. 

Another $29.1 million would go to 11 projects to support manufacturing in national energy initiatives. Included is the potential for integrating carbon capture from dilute sources into industrial processes on top of stabilizing the electricity grid by connecting with flexible combined heat and power systems and renewable generation capabilities. 

The final eight projects would receive $25 million overall to introduce different ways to reduce  energy consumption in chemical manufacturing, such as modular, hybrid or catalytic. The funding would focus on innovative tools, technology, methods and analytics. Projects are to be centered around efforts that enable modularized and distributed systems driven by many different energy sources.