Expanding our clean energy workforce | Photo and video contest | Critical materials

Here's this week's clean energy news 📰

Funding Updates

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , in collaboration with the Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute, is requesting proposals to enhance cybersecurity within American manufacturing. Funding will be available for projects within three critical Industry Use Cases: Industrial Control Systems, Secure Industrial Digitalization, and Industrial Additive Manufacturing.

Funding will renew for EERE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office Critical Materials Institute (CMI), with a potential $30 million per year over five years. CMI will further its mission to accelerate innovative scientific and technological solutions to develop resilient and secure supply chains for materials critical to the manufacturing of clean energy technologies.

And DOE’s first Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute, PowerAmerica, will continue its trailblazing work of advancing domestic manufacturing of next-generation wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductors with an initial allocation of $8 million. WBG semiconductors are used in a range of applications—including industrial equipment, data centers, consumer devices, electric vehicles—to aid economy-wide decarbonization and electrification. 

Welcome Avi Shultz!

Dr. Avi Shultz is the new director of EERE’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) and is leading a team of 80 clean energy champions to accelerate the innovation and adoption of cost-effective technologies that eliminate industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

Renewable News

DOE released a first-of-its-kind database that catalogs materials used to build wind turbines and solar panels. The Renewable Energy Materials Properties Database includes information about the availability, country of origin, physical properties, and significant uses of materials that make up wind and solar facilities.

A group of 14 students will work with geothermal companies, national laboratories, or state agencies on projects that advance geothermal technologies. A collaboration between DOE and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support this first group of geothermal interns under the NSF Non-Academic Research Internships for Graduate Students (INTERN) Program.

🌊 Make a Splash Photo and Video Contest Opens

Applications are open for EERE's Water Power Technologies Office Make a Splash contest. Submit your best photos and videos demonstrating water power technologies, research and development activities, and infrastructure, including the people and communities contributing to or benefitting from water power. The total prize pool of $31,500 will be distributed to the top contenders in six photography and three video categories. 

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education is the foundation of the clean energy workforce.

With the clean energy transition underway, there are opportunities for students at every age and grade level to get involved in addressing the climate crisis and becoming clean energy champions.

Join us in September for a weekly webinar series highlighting EERE careers, featuring EERE leaders and employees who will share their career journeys and explain why it is the most exciting time to be part of the clean energy revolution at DOE. 

Join DOE in Milwaukee, WI, on August 29–30 for a clean energy jobs and workforce accelerator workshop. We need stakeholder input on how to fill the gaps in economic and workforce development efforts to ensure that investments in clean energy result in high-quality, accessible careers.  

For more events and webinars, check out EERE's webpage.

Stay tuned for more electrifying clean energy news ⚡