Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing the development of a rapid innovation agenda to make equitable and efficient electric options available for everyone. Under President Biden’s leadership, the United Statesis leading a clean energy transition that’s made in America and leaves no one behind. President Biden’s bold actions to tackle the climate crisis are lowering household energy costs, bolstering energy security, improving health, and creating good-paying jobs. The President set goals to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50-52% by 2030, to achieve a carbon pollution-free electricity grid by 2035, and to reach net-zero GHG emissions by no later than 2050. To achieve these goals and secure a better future for all Americans, we need a clean, smart, and equitable electricity system built for the 21st century.

Electricity powers our lives and the American economy. By building a clean power grid and electrifying our homes, businesses, industry, and transportation, the United States can get more than halfway to our goal of a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. The Administration’s landmark climate legislation — the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act — will create new clean electric technologies produced and deployed in America, including a nationwide network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. Through technological and financial innovations, we can unlock the full benefits of this electric revolution and power the economy with clean electricity.

The White House Electrification Summit immediately follows the announcement of a major breakthrough in fusion—one of the five innovation priorities the Biden-Harris Administration identified in the Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative. Today’s summit focuses on another game changer identified by the Administration—the combination of a net-zero power grid and electrification. The event kicks off discussions on an innovation agenda for electrification in homes, in businesses, and on our roads. Decades of investments in solar, wind, and batteries have dramatically reduced costs and improved the performance of these technologies, paving the way for widespread electrification today that leverages a clean electric grid. Electrification will help enable the United States to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 while improving health, prosperity, and justice for all Americans.

The Biden-Harris Administration aims to make electric options available to all. The technologies that will build our electrified future will be cleaner, healthier, save us money by reducing energy usage, and integrate seamlessly into our communities’ infrastructure. Clean electricity can power home heating, cooking, hot water, and other services without harmful indoor and outdoor air pollution. Rooftop solar panels on our homes, schools, and businesses can generate clean energy locally for communities. Electric vehicles can be charged easily at home, in neighborhoods, and on road trips, saving us costly trips to the gas station. The electric school buses bringing our children to school and the transit buses in our communities will reduce harmful pollutants, making our communities safer.

With electrification, Americans can save more than $1,000 per year on their energy bills. The air Americans breathe—both in their homes and in their communities—will be cleaner by electrifying our homes, businesses, and vehicles. And importantly, powering more of our economy with electricity will create good-paying jobs from manufacturing, installing, and using these next-generation technologies across the country.

Electrification is a game-changing clean energy innovation, and the Biden-Harris Administration is taking the following steps to accelerate affordable electrification in the United States:

  • The White House Electrification Summit: Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Climate Policy Office, and Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation are co-hosting a White House Electrification Summit. The event will feature Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional leaders including OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory, Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation John Podesta, Senior Advisor and Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi, Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Geri Richmond, OSTP Deputy Director for Energy Sally Benson, Senator Martin Heinrich, Representative Kathy Castor, and Representative Sean Casten. The summit will explore how electrification can help the United States meet its climate and equity goals. At the summit, leaders from government, industry, academia, and stakeholder groups will discuss how to build on the unprecedented opportunities for inclusive electrification created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Leaders will also provide insights into updating our electrification innovation strategy, and will plan follow-up workshops in the coming months to develop and implement the strategy.
  • New Regional Networks for Clean Energy: Today, at the White House Electrification Summit, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm is announcing the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) intent to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to establish a regional network of Technical Assistance Partnerships (TAPs) to help industrial facilities increase the adoption of onsite clean energy technologies, many of which support the electrification of industrial processes. These onsite clean energy technologies – including industrial heat pumps, solar photovoltaics, solar thermal, wind power, renewable fuels, geothermal, battery storage, thermal storage, combined heat and power (CHP), and district energy – will help decarbonize the industrial sector and support a clean energy economy.
  • A New Equitable and Affordable Electrification Prize: Today, DOE’s Building Technologies Office (BTO) is announcing the launch of the Home Electrification Prize, also known as the EAS-e (Equitable and Affordable Solutions to Electrification) prize. This prize will fund innovative solutions to make it easier to efficiently retrofit our homes. The prize will focus on underserved communities, and support solutions for multifamily affordable housing and manufactured homes. Overall, the prize aims to accelerate electrification while improving indoor air quality and health through better ventilation and reduction in indoor pollutants caused by fossil fuel combustion.
  • Nationwide Commitments to Open Power Outage Data: Today, the White House is announcing new commitments from 35 utilities to share real-time, standardized, and transparent power outage data with the Outage Data Initiative Nationwide (ODIN), increasing the number of customers covered by 400%. Transparent power outage data is essential to ensure that all American communities can benefit from a more electrified future. That’s why OSTP and DOE launched a White House Call to Action on November 22, 2022. With these new commitments, the ODIN network includes over 100 utilities operating in 44 states plus Puerto Rico, serving over 43 million customers (one-quarter of U.S. electric customers) and covering over 700,000 square miles. The ODIN data standard is also a Program Policy Factor in the Grid Resilience Utility and Industry Grants FOA for DOE’s Grid Resilience Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program, which includes $2.5 billion for utilities and related operators to reduce outages and enhance the resilience of the electric grid.
  • New Frontiers in Clean Building Innovation: Today, BTO is also announcing the launch of the 2022/23 BENEFIT (Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies) FOA that will provide up to $45 million for building innovations across building envelope, heating, cooling, water heating, energy storage, and controls technologies. As the flagship annual funding opportunity, this year’s BENEFIT FOA will focus on technology development and demonstration that can significantly advance building decarbonization, such as cost reduction for heat pumps and heat pump water heaters, advancing refrigerants with low global warming potential, and improving insulation technologies and control systems to realize low-cost efficiency gains in existing buildings.
  • AI for Electric Grid Optimization: The United States and European Commission intend to bring together experts to explore collaborations on research and development to leverage artificial intelligence for electric grid optimization. These collaborations could help support load balancing in electric grids, increase the share of renewable energy used by electric grids, and facilitate more adaptive and resilient grid systems.

Today’s summit and announcements harness the momentum of the Biden-Harris Administration’s monumental efforts to accelerate the electrification of buildings, transportation, and industry and to maintain a secure, affordable, and reliable grid that will be net-zero by 2035.

Meeting the needs of all Americans in a clean, electric future will require a coordinate approach across all of these sectors.

Better Buildings and Appliances

  • Supporting Building Decarbonization through Tax Credits and Rebates: The Inflation Reduction Act will offer tax credits and rebates to support electrification, energy efficiency measures, and renewable energy for America’s homes and businesses.
  • Launching the Federal Building Performance Standard and Coalition: The Council on Environmental Quality announced the first-ever Federal Building Performance Standard, setting an ambitious goal to cut energy use and electrify equipment and appliances in 30% of the building space owned by the federal government by 2030. The Administration also launched a Building Performance Standards Coalition of over 30 states and local governments to reduce building emissions, create good-paying union jobs in energy efficiency and electrification, and lower energy bills. Last week, California became the latest state to join this Coalition.
  • Investing in Tribal and State Home Energy Efficiency Programs: The DOE Office of State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) is working to distribute $8.8 billion in rebates to Tribes and states for home energy efficiency and electrification projects from the Inflation Reduction Act.
  • Creating Household Savings through Energy Efficiency: By the end of 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration intends to finalize more than 100 proposed and final actions that will save households money through more efficient air conditioners, stoves, refrigerators, and more. Starting in 2023, the Inflation Reduction Act will provide tax incentives and rebates to homeowners that lower, or in some cases completely cover, the cost of making the switch to energy-efficient appliances that lower the utility bills of American families.
  • Improving School Infrastructure: Vice President Harris announced a new Biden-Harris Action Plan for Building Better School Infrastructure to support energy efficiency retrofits and other improvements that save school districts money and deliver health and education benefits to students, educators, and school staff.
  • Investing in RD&D for Sustainable Buildings and Appliance Efficiency: DOE is accelerating innovation with the launch of the Initiative for Better Energy, Emissions, and Equity, supporting RDD&D of clean heating and cooling systems to support sustainable buildings, and updated ENERGY STAR standards to promote innovative heat pump technologies and encourage electric appliances.
  • Showcasing Better Buildings Through Electrification: Through the Better Climate Challenge, the DOE is working with more than 140 organizations across the US economy to make near term, portfolio wide improvements in pursuit of aggressive GHG reduction targets. Partners are working to showcase real world decarbonization strategies in commercial, industrial and multifamily buildings including pathways for electrification of facilities.

Affordable Electric Transportation

  • Kicking Off America’s Electric Vehicle Boom: The Administration is rallying automakers and autoworkers around an electric transportation future, setting a national target of 50% electric vehicle sales share in 2030 and spurring investments in new American factories to manufacture EVs, batteries, and chargers. The Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits for new electric vehicles that are assembled in North America and have a battery that meets certain sourcing requirements, and provides tax credits for previously owned electric vehicles.
  • Planning for a Federal Clean Transportation Future: The Administration announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among U.S. Departments of Energy, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to accelerate the nation’s affordable and equitable clean transportation future. The four agencies will release a national blueprint for transportation decarbonization in January 2023.
  • Reducing Heavy-Duty Vehicle Pollution: Vice President Harris announced actions to accelerate clean buses, trucks, and ports — reducing pollution from heavy-duty transportation and providing relief to fenceline communities who bear the brunt of these dirty emissions. At COP27, Secretary Granholm also signed a MOU to advance uptake of zero-emissions medium and heavy-duty vehicles.
  • Building America’s EV Charging Network: The Administration launched an EV Charging Action Plan to deploy $7.5 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build out a national charging network that is convenient, reliable, and equitable, with support from a new Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. Earlier this year, the Joint Office approved Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment Plans for all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico ahead of schedule, and also established the electric vehicle working group to advise the Secretaries of Energy and Transportation regarding development, adoptions, and integration of EVs.
  • Expanding America’s Electric Vehicle Batteries Industrial Base: DOE announced the first set of projects funded by the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand domestic manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and the electrical grid and to advance domestic battery recycling and reuse.
  • Ensuring Critical Minerals Access: President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to support American production of critical minerals and materials such as lithium, securing nearly $7 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for domestic battery manufacturing and recycling — all while adhering to strong sustainability and community engagement standards.

A Smart and Resilient Power Grid

  • Launching the Net-Zero Game Changes Initiative: The White House announced five priorities as part of the Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative, including a priority to support a net-zero power grid and electrification through advanced transmission and distribution planning and operations.
  • Improving Utilities’ Data & Analytics: The DOE Office of Electricity launched the $1.1-million Digitizing Utilities Prize to transform digital systems in the energy sector through data analytics, processing, quality assurance, storage, and deletion.

More Productive, Cleaner Industries

  • Launching the Industrial Heat ShotTM:The DOE Industrial Electrification and Decarbonization Office recently announced the launch of the Industrial Heat Shot™, a new effort aimed at dramatically reducing the cost, energy use, and carbon emissions associated with the heat used to make everything from food to cement and steel. DOE identified the electrification of industrial heating operations as one of the key pathways to reaching the Earthshot target.
  • Investing in Manufacturing Innovation: The DOE issued a $70 million FOA establishing a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which will develop and scale technologies to electrify industrial process heating and reduce emissions across the industrial sector.

In addition to this portfolio of actions, more announcements will be forthcoming as we continue to advance innovation for electrification.

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