WSU’s Energy Extension Program is currently delivering grant and contract services to the Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) of the Department of Energy. The OIT’s Industries of the Future (IOF) program is a $74 million a year program that provides the most energy intensive industries in the U.S. with funds for research, development and deployment projects to increase competitiveness with energy efficient, environmentally sensitive outcomes. In 1999, we completed the first phase of technology project R&D outreach work ($67k) with five industries in Washington State, including agriculture, aluminum, forest products, mining and petroleum refining. Phase two ($75k) of our successful efforts commenced in October with targeted outcomes for new industry/university collaborations, including new joint research proposals to respond to industry roadmap solicitation project opportunities.
To expand opportunities for faculty and students on the Pullman campus, Denise Swink, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the DOE and head of the OIT, visited the Pullman campus in December and met with President Smith and many of our key administrators, deans, and faculty.
n 1999, we also landed a new $5 million, five-year contract to become the OIT’s national clearinghouse for the Industry of the Future and for the other OIT programs budgeted at almost $170 million a year. This opportunity came as a result of our six years of successful industrial clearinghouse efforts which have served 17,000 clients and delivered some 30,000 programmatic and technical cases. The OIT Clearinghouse contract will allow us to become a national player by providing nationwide clients with in-person customer hotlines, websites, library research, software, fact sheets, case studies and on-line training.
Other potential developing new opportunities include utilizing the extension and possibly the state’s manufacturing networks to target industries for more intense IOF outreach efforts in such newly emerging industries as ag/biofuels. We will also have opportunities to respond uniquely to $1-4 million R&D industry specific project solicitation opportunities and an anticipated re-bidding of the university-based Industrial Assessment Center solicitations ($165k per year for five years), create new industry-driven applied research centers of excellence initiatives, e.g., the NW Aluminum Technology Center, and participate in federal small invention development and industrial innovation opportunities.
