Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $3 million in funding for three projects to speed the adoption of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies at facilities across the federal government. As the nation’s largest single user of energy, the federal government is leading by example and these projects will reduce carbon emissions, while strengthening America’s economic, energy, and environmental security.

Through DOE’s standardized Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) ENABLE performance contract, agencies can more quickly install energy conservation measures such as lighting and solar photovoltaics at smaller facilities as compared with a traditional ESPC but still allow agencies to make facility improvements with no added cost to the taxpayer. This supports federal goals to improve and streamline innovative financing, so agencies can achieve 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025. Smaller buildings represent significant energy savings opportunities for many federal agencies.

Today’s Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies (AFFECT) will help the DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program’s (FEMP) lead the way to bring clean energy projects to federal facilities. The selected agencies will use the AFFECT awards to institutionalize the use of ESPC ENABLE at their agency and identify a pipeline of at least 10 candidate projects sites to use ESPC ENABLE. Once established, each agency will implement energy savings projects using their new ENABLE process. Each agency will be awarded a $1 million grant. Cost shared with industry, the total investment will be over $50 million in Phase Two. Additionally, the three agencies identified a potential total investment of over $1.3 billion that these agencies could implement if they applied their ESPC ENABLE process aggressively across their portfolio of small-sized facilities.

Programs funded under the Energy Department’s Federal Energy Management Program are:

• Department of Agriculture (U.S. Forest Service) – This program proposes to expand its use of ENABLE from two regions to 10 regions overall. The agency has demonstrated an impressive understanding of how to institutionalize the ESPC ENABLE process within its organization, and there is high-level and broad support throughout the organization. The U.S. Forest Service is committed to developing $15 million worth of energy savings projects.
• General Service Administration (Public Building Service) – This program will utilize a proven ESPC Team, the General Service Administration’s (GSA) Project Management Office (PMO), to institutionalize the ESPC ENABLE process across the entire organization. GSA is committed to developing $18 million worth of energy savings projects.
• Department of Defense (U.S. Air Force) – This program has identified organizational barriers experienced with performance contracting in the past, and has developed a plan to overcome them with the newly created Office of Energy Assurance (OEA) to ensure an efficient, effectively ESPC ENABLE process that will be institutionalized within the Air National Guard. Air Force is committed to developing $18 million worth of energy savings projects.

The Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) accelerates development and facilitates deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and market-based solutions that strengthen U.S. energy security, environmental quality, and economic vitality.