Last month, President Obama and Secretary Chu announced a 346 million dollar investment from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) meant to be a catalyst for development, deployment and use of energy-efficient technologies in commercial and residential buildings.

The goal of this initiative is to make buildings up to 80 percent more efficient—even becoming “net zero” energy buildings. The Department of Energy recognizes that making buildings more efficient is one of the easiest, fastest and most cost-effective ways to reduce carbon emissions while creating new jobs.

To combat the huge burden of energy consumption that buildings are responsible for currently, the government plans to fund innovations in energy-efficient building, such as equipment, lighting, daylighting and windows—as well as solar, photovoltaic, fuel cells, advanced sensors and controls and combined heating, cooling and power. With the use of these technologies, future buildings—as well as upgraded and renovated existing buildings—will use considerably less energy, therefore reducing emissions.

This funding will include:

• Advanced building systems research ($100 mil)—research focused on the systems design, integration and control of both new and existing buildings
• Residential buildings development and deployment ($70 mil)—projects designed to increase homeowner savings by supporting energy-efficient retrofits and new homes, as well as raising consumer awareness
• Commercial buildings initiative ($53.5 mil)—funds will be used to accelerate and expand partnerships with companies that design, build, own, manage or operate large fleets of buildings and commit to achieving high energy performance
• Buildings and appliance market transformation ($72.5 mil)—goals include expanding Energy Star® to accelerate development of energy-efficient products and expand products into new areas; additionally, implementing commercial building energy codes that require a 30 percent improvement in energy efficiency over the 2004 code in 2010
• Solid-state lighting research and development ($50 mil)—targeting the advancement of state-of-the-art solid-state lighting (SSL) technology to aid in the development and reduce first cost of high-performance lighting products

To find out more about this building initiative, visit http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings