DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES AND SELECTED RESULTS FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY S CLEAN ENERGY APPLICATION CENTERS: FISCAL YEAR 2010

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sponsors a set of Clean Energy Application Centers that promote the development and deployment of clean energy technologies. There are eight regional centers that provide assistance for specific areas of the country plus a separate center operated by the International District Energy Association that provides technical assistance on district energy issues and applications to the regional centers. The original focus of the centers was on combined heat and power (CHP) alone but, beginning in fiscal year 2010, their scope expanded to include district energy systems and waste heat recovery. At that time, the official name of the centers changed from CHP Regional Application Centers (RACs) to Clean Energy Application Centers, and their number was expanded to include the previously-mentioned center focusing on district energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has performed two previous studies of RAC activities. The first one examined what the RACs had done each year from the initiation of the program through fiscal year (FY) 2008 and the second one examined RAC activities for the 2009 fiscal year. The most recent study, described in this report, examines what was accomplished in fiscal year 2010, the first year since the RACs expandedmore » their focus and changed their name to Clean Energy Application Centers.« less