Creating a Prioritized Regional Energy Efficiency Research Agenda

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) Office of Technology Innovation and Energy Efficiency Department has recently undertaken an initiative to create a regional energy efficiency technology roadmap for the Pacific Northwest. The goal of the roadmap is to create a research agenda for the Northwest that will provide direction and continuity for the collective efforts engaging commercially-available, near-commercially-available, and deeper R&D technology needs. BPAs Office of Technology Innovation has been using roadmaps to guide their research agenda since the mid 2000s. Technology roadmaps are a one-page graphical representation that BPA uses to draw bright lines between business challenges and the products or solutions needed to solve those challenges. The research agenda is then set by the gaps identified during the process. When it came time to refresh the existing energy efficiency roadmap, BPA invited the region to participate in the creation of a new roadmap. Having the region participate in the creation of the roadmap will create great value for the Pacific Northwest by: Linking strategy to product plans and technology plans Enabling regional coordinated technology planning Focusing on longer-term, goal-oriented planning Improving communication and ownership of plans The resulting roadmap covers residential, commercial, industrial inc. food processing and chp. Technology areas like variable capacity heat pumps for commercial buildings have their own dedicated roadmaps.