Dr. Mark Johnson (left), director of the Energy Department’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, moderates a panel on shared infrastructure and innovation ecosystems.

Dr. Dave Danielson, former Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, delivers the summit’s keynote address.

American manufacturing is primed for a comeback thanks in part to President Obama’s vision and a sweeping initiative led by the Energy Department to spur new alliances, investments and innovation in clean energy technologies.  

The Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI), launched by our Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) three years ago, has been a crucial catalyst in making our nation’s manufacturing sector more efficient and boosting the U.S. manufacturing of clean energy products like solar panels and light-emitting diode (LED) lightbulbs. Throughout this administration, EERE will have invested more than $1 billion in rebuilding our country’s clean energy manufacturing innovation infrastructure.

A cornerstone of CEMI has been our partnership with the Council on Competitiveness to involve manufacturing leaders, a crucial part of strengthening the United States’ manufacturing competitiveness. Through regional forums, we explored challenges and opportunities in building clean energy manufacturing ecosystems across the United States. This partnership has bred new alliances that are advancing a wide array of game-changing advanced manufacturing technologies important to clean energy, such as 3D printing and wide-bandgap semiconductors, creating exciting new opportunities for U.S. leadership in manufacturing.

The fruits of this partnership were on display at the 2016 American Energy and Manufacturing Competitiveness (AEMC) Northeast Summit: Innovating for a Clean Energy Future on May 12 in New York City. At this event, national leaders from academia, industry and government showcased progress in strengthening domestic clean energy manufacturing and discussed ways to continue the steady evolution of the partnership in strengthening American manufacturing.

The summit, which was held at the City College of New York in its Great Hall, built on three years of engagement and collaboration that has created an innovation ecosystem like no other in the world: linking private- and public-sector leaders across industry, academia, labor and our world-class national laboratories. Through CEMI and other sweeping efforts, the Energy Department is blazing a path to establish a newly connected innovation ecosystem.

Select components of this ecosystem include:

  • A new regional program announced by EERE leaders at the summit known as Manufacturing Impacts through Energy and Commerce (MITEC). This pilot, starting with a focus in four states—Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia—will open doors to connections previously unavailable to businesses and universities by linking to tools, technological expertise, research capabilities, and business development resources at the Energy Department’s national laboratories and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s state network of Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers.
  • An unprecedented network of clean manufacturing research and development (R&D) consortia. Progress includes three new institutes in the President’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation in the areas of power electronics, advanced composites, and smart manufacturing. The Energy Department is currently working to establish two more institutes – the Modular Chemical Process Intensification Institute, and the Reducing EMbodied-energy And Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) in Materials Manufacturing Institute. Additionally, the Department has established two new high-impact manufacturing demonstration facilities with its national laboratories focused on 3D printing and high-performance computing power.
  • A pilot program, Technologist in Residence, that fosters long-term partnerships between national labs and industry by pairing senior lab technical staff with counterparts from large U.S. manufacturing companies, such as Proctor & Gamble, Hewlett Packard, and Cummins, to conduct collaborative research.

As Deborah L. Wince-Smith, president and CEO of the Council on Competitiveness, recently stated: “One of the biggest drivers of American competitiveness is innovation. By offering entrepreneurs the keys to the most advanced laboratories in the world, we’re betting that America will win the innovation race in clean energy.”

The pace of global innovation is quickening and the investments through CEMI will put the United States on a secure path to win that clean energy race.

Eli Levine
Eli Levine leads the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI) to develop and leverage strategic partnerships to advance U.S. manufacturing. Eli Levine leads the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI) to develop and leverage strategic partnerships to advance U.S. manufacturing.
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