by Jbs120309 c3 — December 11, 2009 The Department of Energy (DOE) announced on November 18 its selection of eight new and improved energy efficiency test facilities to be built at seven of its national laboratories with the help of $104.7 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. The projects will support the development and improvement of energy efficiency technologies of strategic national interest.
Specifically, the funding will go toward reducing the production cost of carbon fiber manufacturing, to help in reducing the weight of vehicles; improving the efficiency and lowering the costs for car batteries; and exploring advanced technologies for net-zero-energy buildings. The eight national laboratories are located in California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, New Mexico, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Three projects relate to the technologies needed to build net-zero-energy buildings, which employ renewable energy systems to produce as much energy over the course of a year as they consume:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory will develop the Integrated Net-Zero Energy Buildings Research Laboratory, which will include a research platform for commercial buildings;
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California will build and operate the National User Facility for Net-Zero Energy Buildings Research, which will allow for the integrated testing of building technologies; and the
- National Energy Technology Laboratory will build a 35,000-square-foot Performance Verification Laboratory to perform nearly 17,000 verifications tests per year on a broad range of residential and commercial appliances.
For more information, see the DOE Web site.
