Introspective Portfolio Assessment

NREL is developing a framework for a systematic, data-driven approach to assessing projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO).

NREL works to standardize the assessment and dissemination of the impacts of R&D funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Manufacturing and Industrial Decarbonization Offices. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL

IEDO funds projects across numerous technology areas and in partnership with stakeholders throughout the United States. Their funding opportunities foster collaboration across sectors and pave the way for innovative technology research and development to increase energy efficiency across the manufacturing sector.

NREL is creating a standard approach for assessing and communicating the energy and economic impacts of IEDO-funded R&D projects. Specifically, NREL is implementing a transparent and flexible methodology, in the form of an introspective portfolio assessment (IPA) protocol, to evaluate R&D investments across the diverse portfolio of R&D technologies.

As a first step, several projects are involved in piloting the IPA protocol over a multiyear trial period, after which these methods will be expanded to the broader IEDO R&D portfolio of approximately 300 R&D projects.

IPA provides a flexible framework to assess the impacts of R&D projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's IEDO at a project and portfolio level. Graphic by NREL, Energetics

Impact

The implementation of the IPA will help track project progress and communicate contribution of current IEDO-funded projects to establish office success indicators and technology-specific performance, energy efficiency, and cost targets.

Capabilities

NREL applied analysis and project management capabilities to define project data requirements, coordinate with project principal investigators, and support the integration of the IPA elements into IEDO's funding opportunity requirements.

Partners

NREL partners with IEDO and Energetics, a technology and management consulting firm, to support this effort.

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