The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Project Management Center (PMC) consists of the following field implementation organizations: Golden Field Office (GO), and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Each field organization has distinct responsibilities for implementing defined pieces of the 11 EERE Technology Offices in support of EERE Headquarters. More information on these 11 EERE Technology Offices can be found here.
- Geothermal Technologies Office
The Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) supports research and development in innovative technologies that reduce the risk and costs of bringing geothermal power online, in partnership with industry, academia, and DOE's national laboratories. GTO invests in projects that establish geothermal energy as a core component and an economically competitive contributor to the U.S. energy supply.
- Wind Program
The Wind Program, part of the Wind and Water Power Technologies Office, works to enable rapid expansion of clean, affordable, and reliable domestic wind power to promote national security, economic vitality, and environmental quality.
- Water Power Program
The Water Power Program, part of the Wind and Water Power Technologies Office, researches, tests, evaluates, and develops innovative technologies capable of generating renewable, environmentally responsible, and cost-effective electricity from water resources. This includes hydropower, as well as marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies, which capture energy from waves as well as riverine, tidal, and ocean currents.
- Homes
Weatherization saves eligible families hundreds of dollars on their heating and cooling bills in the first year alone, reducing the nation's energy bills by more than $2 billion annually. Weatherization programs have also trained more than 200,000 American workers, boosting their eligibility for jobs and helping to grow the clean energy workforce.
- Building Technologies Office
The Building Technologies Office leads a network of research and industry partners to continually develop innovative, cost-effective energy-saving solutions for homes and buildings.
- Advanced Manufacturing Office
The Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) partners with industry, small business, universities, and other stakeholders to identify and invest in emerging technologies with the potential to create high-quality U.S. manufacturing jobs, enhance global competitiveness, and reduce energy use by encouraging a culture of continuous improvement in corporate energy management.
- Vehicle Technologies Office
The Vehicle Technologies Office develops and deploys efficient and environmentally friendly highway transportation technologies that will enable America to use less petroleum. These technologies will provide Americans with greater freedom of mobility and energy security, while lowering costs and reducing impacts on the environment.
- Bioenergy Technologies Office
The Bioenergy Technologies Office is focused on forming cost-share partnerships with key stakeholders to develop, demonstrate, and deploy technologies for advanced biofuels production from lignocellulosic and algal biomass.
- Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
- Fuel Cell Technologies Office
The Fuel Cell Technologies Office addresses the full range of barriers facing the development and deployment of innovative hydrogen and fuel cell technologies with the ultimate goals of decreasing U.S. dependence on oil, reducing carbon emissions, and enabling clean, reliable power generation.
Since its formation, EERE had lacked a full-service project management capability typically found in other parts of DOE. Instead, it has had to rely upon DOE’s vast network of service providers including Operations and Field Offices, and National Laboratories. The field structure belonging to EERE included the Golden Field Office (GO) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) primarily implementing the EERE research and development portfolio, and the six Regional Offices (ROs) located throughout the U.S. implementing the EERE market transformation/deployment portfolio. Approximately 50 percent of EERE’s total Program dollars flowed through GO’s procurement authority. The balance of EERE’s Program dollars flowed through the other elements of DOE’s network of service providers. Work was placed at locations other than GO and NREL to take advantage of special capabilities or because GO didn’t have the capacity to offer more support.
In the context of planning and implementing the EERE reorganization, it became evident to EERE’s senior management that this vast network of providers was out-of-line with EERE’s new “one way of doing business.” If EERE were to apply its new model that emphasized common business practices to the Field as well as to Headquarters, senior management concluded in 2002 that EERE needed to consolidate its project management operations as much as possible in GO.
EERE began to consolidate more resources in GO in Fiscal Year 2003 in an effort to reduce the vast network of providers EERE relies upon for project management services. By the end of Fiscal Year 2003, EERE had transferred staff and work from the Albuquerque, Chicago, Idaho, Oakland, and Oak Ridge Operations Offices to GO.
Although progress was made in consolidating project management resources in GO, a number of things became evident to EERE senior management as they observed the consolidation process:
- A complete consolidation of project management capabilities in GO would take years, not months;
- The lengthy consolidation would make implementing a “new way of doing project management” across EERE difficult; and
- Staff throughout EERE were expressing concerns that GO was overwhelmed with new work.
Recognizing that the consolidation of EERE’s project management resources in GO was not going as quickly and as smoothly as originally planned, senior management began reviewing other project management options in the summer of 2003.
Given the situation EERE found itself in terms of project management, senior management advanced an approach that integrates available project management resources and capabilities, and is also conducive to the implementation of common project management and business practices. Specifically, EERE decided to integrate GO, NETL and the six ROs into an EERE virtual Project Management Center. Although GO, NETL and the ROs would each have distinct responsibilities within the Center, all parts would use common project management and business practices.
Finally, in the summer of 2006, EERE management decided that further efficiencies would be obtained by further integrating the EERE research and development portfolio with the market transformation/deployment function by consolidating the six ROs with the GO and NETL organizations. The “eastern” regional offices (Northeast RO in Boston, MA; Mid-Atlantic RO in Philadelphia, PA; and Southeast RO in Atlanta, GA) were consolidated into NETL and the “western” regional offices (Midwest RO in Chicago, IL; Central RO in Denver, CO; and Western RO is Seattle, WA) were consolidated into GO. Today, the EERE Project Management Center functions as an integrated organization that delivers products and services to the primary EERE customers and stakeholders from it’s field locations in GO and NETL.