On January 29, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) Building Technologies Office (BTO) announced funding for up to $42 million in project selections to support early-stage research and development (R&D) on residential and commercial building technologies for energy efficiency. According to DOE EERE BTO, buildings currently use 75 percent of U.S. electricity, accounting for 40 percent of U.S. overall energy usage.  Aiming to assist customers and businesses to save energy costs and drive domestic economic competitiveness, a total of 46 research projects were selected as a result of three fiscal year (FY) 2018 funding opportunity announcements (FOA).

The FOAs focused in three major areas:

(1) Building Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies;

(2) Solid State Lighting; and

(3) Building America.

Each focus area includes subcategories establishing the scope of the R&D projects. Under the first focus area, $19.5 million was granted to 19 different research projects. The other two focus areas received $11 million and $11.5 million, respectively.