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U.S. Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

International Program

The International Program collaborates with foreign partners to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy portfolio-wide technologies and to develop market opportunities for American companies.

What We Do

The EERE International Program advances the progress of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's (EERE) domestic R&D programs and accelerates global deployment of U.S.-made clean energy technologies through international collaboration. The Energy Department's Strategic Plan, published in May 2011, highlights the importance of international collaboration:

Because the greatest energy challenges are global in nature, the Department will foster international partnerships to advance our common goals for developing and deploying clean energy technologies and addressing climate change, energy security, and energy scarcity…U.S. leadership through the Department can help promote clean energy technologies around the world. Other countries can have greater demand, pace, risk and/or tolerance in energy innovation. International partnerships could offer more diverse projects to increase learning rates, promote the global adoption of clean energy technologies, and perhaps ease foreign market entry for U.S. firms. However, intellectual property and competitiveness issues will be carefully managed.

To realize the benefits of international collaboration, we coordinate with other DOE offices and U.S. government agencies to identify, negotiate and actively manage targeted partnerships and projects that help advance our strategic goals. All funds support U.S.-based project performers.

Why it Matters

We fund U.S. performers to conduct collaborative activities with international partners to help:

  • Accelerate our domestic R&D program results by leveraging international resources
    • We fund collaborative R&D on multiple energy efficiency and renewable energy topics through the United States. The Israel BIRD Foundation leveraged 3:1 with Israeli and private sector cost share with U.S. funding.
    • We coordinate competitively-awarded collaborative R&D consortia of U.S. scientists and counterparts in China and Indian focusing on topics such as biofuels, solar, building efficiency, and electric drive technologies.
    • We leverage the vast knowledge and expertise of the international community by facilitating information exchange and expert-to-expert interactions between U.S. scientists and their counterpart around the world to identify and organize mutually-beneficial R&D collaborations.
  • Improve energy security
    • We fund collaborative R&D on developing drop-in biofuels with Brazil, which can lead to reduced oil demand in both countries.
    • Our collaborative projects with countries such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and Russia are focused on enhancing their readiness to absorb energy efficiency and/or renewable energy technologies into their economies which reduces the demand for fossil-based energy supplies while increasing domestic energy sources.
  • Prime markets for U.S. exports
    • We are supporting a technical workshop in Brazil involving three U.S. midsized wind turbine manufacturers (which are the recipients of DOE R&D awards) to explore Brazilian policy incentives, interconnection issues, and market opportunities. This activity promotes U.S. export opportunity and job creation in the wind manufacturing sector, and supports bilateral engagement under U.S.-Brazil Strategic Economic Dialogue.
    • We support the National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaboration with India's Solar Energy Center (SEC) on testing and characterization of U.S. manufactured PV modules at SEC's outdoor test facility. This activity supports the U.S. PV thin film industry by improving understanding of how their products are performing in different environments over long periods of time and developing testing procedures that could help them improve product reliability. U.S. thin film products can thus retain competitiveness in India's growing solar market, despite widespread availability of cheap Chinese crystalline Silicon modules This activity supports the U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE).
    • We are also supporting the adoption and implementation of minimum performance standards and labeling programs in foreign markets, to guide them toward common, existing U.S. or international versions whenever possible. Familiar standards and labels can reduce the compliance costs to U.S. manufacturers selling in foreign markets and help them respond quicker to opportunities in new markets.

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are also components of the Obama Administration's "All of the Above" energy strategy, included in the Blueprint for an America Built to Last. Energy security and climate change are global issues that require international cooperation. Energy efficiency and renewable energy have the ability to address both of these challenges by reducing global energy demand, diversifying energy supplies, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and use of energy.

International Partnerships and Projects

Read more about EERE's activities in different regions on our International Partnerships and Projects page.