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Workshop Agenda

ENHANCING FEDERAL CLEAN ENERGY INNOVATION: WORKSHOP SERIES

JULY 27–AUGUST 7, 2020

Session 1: The Imperative to Accelerate Energy Innovation
July 27

Innovation should be a central pillar of U.S. climate and clean energy policy. Innovation is necessary to lower costs and improve performance of existing clean technologies, and to develop new clean energy options that address innovation challenges in harder-to-decarbonize sectors. As today’s technologies are deployed to bend the carbon emissions curve, new and improved technologies will be required to unlock additional pathways to a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. To achieve this goal, experts must accelerate the current pace of innovation. In order to do that, innovation is needed in the innovation process itself. The focus of this panel—and the workshop more broadly—is how U.S. policy can rise to this unprecedented challenge.

Session 2: Strategies for Acceleration: Strengthening User Pull
July 28

The United States has difficulty moving energy technologies from laboratory to market, and a key reason is the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) energy innovation system, which is strong on “technology push” but weak on “user pull.” To enhance the federal clean energy innovation system, experts must strengthen the role of commercial users in the DOE innovation process. This session will look at various ways to do this, including technology demonstrations, state-level incentives and policy, use of alternative financing mechanisms, and creation of new partnerships such that commercial users are engaged earlier in the development of clean energy technologies.

Session 3: Strategies for Acceleration: Leveraging and Learning from the Department of Defense
July 29

Although the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) $1.6 billion-a-year investment in energy research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) is driven by military requirements, there is considerable alignment with civilian clean energy innovation needs, including thin-film

solar, batteries and long-term stationary storage, microgrids, wide-bandgap semiconductors, and small nuclear reactors. Moreover, DoD’s approach to innovation—including its heavy reliance on technology demonstrations and its willingness to be a cost-insensitive early adopter—is well suited to energy technology. This session will look at how DOE can better leverage DoD as a source of user pull and take advantage of DoD’s strengths as an innovator in those areas where military and civilian energy technology requirements are aligned.

Session 4: Managing the Department of Energy’s Research and Development Portfolio
July 31

To meet our 21st century energy needs, DOE must have the right balance of investments in its research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) portfolio and a strategic approach that integrates its component offices and capabilities. This panel will look at how DOE can better manage its RD&D portfolio, with sufficient attention both to early-stage research and development (R&D) and to later-stage technology demonstrations. Topics for discussion will include the following: the status of the Quadrennial Energy Review; the role of technology roadmaps; strategies to foster a culture of innovation and nurture top talent; the relationship between the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences and technology R&D and demonstration; the efficacy of new constructs such as Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) and Energy Innovation Hubs; and the role of the national laboratories in the innovation process, including partnerships with academia and industry.

Session 5: Expert Roundtable
August 3

This session will bring together experts from industry, government, academia, and nongovernmental organizations to continue the conversation occurring throughout this workshop series on how to best align federal clean energy innovation efforts. The participants will explore policies and other activities that the federal government could undertake to accelerate the clean energy innovation process, and identify where barriers to innovation exist. The objective of this roundtable is to create a space for developing and sharing a broad range of ideas and to allow a wide range of participants to discuss their experiences with the clean energy innovation process.

Session 6: Advanced Manufacturing and the Climate Crisis: Changes and Opportunities
August 4

The climate crisis and efforts to combat it will have profound implications for U.S. advanced manufacturing. Climate policy will fundamentally reshape markets, from agriculture to transportation. Moreover, the technological innovation required to meet climate goals could make U.S. manufacturing firms more, not less, competitive. This session will explore these changes and opportunities across a range of sectors.

Session 7: Thinking Globally
August 6

Clean energy innovation entails both competition and cooperation with other countries. U.S. policy must balance these twin imperatives across diverse technologies and sectors as well as in basic research and discovery science. Topics for discussion in this session include how to coordinate RD&D and user-pull policies, especially for hard-to-decarbonize sectors; foster resilient and secure supply chains; protect intellectual property without stifling innovation; balance domestic job creation with global efficiencies; and avoid “lock-in” of inferior technologies. Overarching all of these difficult issues is the future of the international institutional architecture for clean energy innovation.

Session 8: Next Steps
August 7

Remarks from former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, followed by a dialogue with Arati Prabhakar and Norman Augustine.