[Federal Register: November 13, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 220)]
[Notices]               
[Page 67149-67150]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr13no08-28]                         

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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

 
National Priority Project Designation

AGENCY: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. 
Department of Energy.

ACTION: Notice of guidelines for requesting National Priority Project 
Designation.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (DOE) is publishing guidelines for 
persons and organizations interested in requesting National Priority 
Project Designation as established in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 
(EPAct 2005). The President, upon recommendation of the Secretary of 
Energy, is authorized by EPAct 2005 annually to recognize projects that 
are making the greatest strides in helping the United States reduce its 
dependence on fossil fuels and promote domestic energy security. 
Following approval of an information collection request, DOE will 
publish an invitation to apply under the guidelines published today.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Patrick Shipp, Office of Information 
and Business Management Systems (EE-3C), Office of Energy Efficiency 
and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC 20585, 
(202) 586-7769; Jody Barringer, Office of Information and Business 
Management Systems (EE-3C), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable 
Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC 20585; or e-mail at 
nppd@ee.doe.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: EPAct 2005 (Pub. L. 109-58), Section 1405, 
authorizes the President, on the basis of recommendations of the 
Secretary of Energy, annually to designate as National Priority 
Projects those projects shown to have advanced the field of renewable 
energy technology and/or building energy efficiency and contributed to 
North American energy independence. Organizations whose projects 
receive a Presidential designation will receive a medal bearing the 
inscription ``National Priority Project,'' and they may use the 
National Priority Project Designation in promotion of the organization. 
DOE also will work with recipients and with national media sources to 
spotlight these projects as models for the rest of the country and the 
world.
    Section 1405 of EPAct 2005 establishes selection criteria for the 
following four categories of renewable energy projects: (1) Wind and 
biomass energy generation projects; (2) photovoltaic and fuel cell 
energy generation projects; (3) energy efficient building and renewable 
energy projects; and (4) first-in class projects. Section 1405 also 
directs the Secretary of Energy to publish in the Federal Register 
guidelines for submitting applications and annual invitations for 
applications. DOE's Guidelines for National Priority Project 
Designation are set forth as an Appendix to this notice.
    Following approval of the collection of information published also 
in today's Federal Register, DOE will publish an invitation for 
applications.

    Issued in Washington, DC on October 31, 2008.
John Mizroch,
Acting Assistant Secretary, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Appendix

Department of Energy

Guidelines for National Priority Project Designation

    Presidential National Priority Project Designation may be earned 
by organizations involved in projects that are leading the way in 
using energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. This 
designation, established by Section 1405 of the Energy Policy Act of 
2005 (Pub. L. 109-58) provides the President of the United States 
and the Secretary of Energy with a mechanism to recognize projects 
that are making the greatest strides in helping North America reduce 
its dependence on fossil fuels and promote domestic energy security.
    Projects that receive the National Priority Project Designation 
will be highlighted by the Department of Energy (DOE) as 
transformational energy efficiency and renewable energy leaders. DOE 
will work with recipients and with national media sources to 
spotlight these projects as models for the rest of the country and 
the world.

I. Eligible Projects

A. Categories of Projects

    DOE will accept applications for National Priority Project 
Designation in the following project categories:
    (1) Grid-Scale Generation by Wind and Biomass Energy Projects. 
To be eligible for National Priority Project Designation, a wind or 
biomass project must provide electricity to the national power grid, 
rather than electricity designed to serve only specific end users.
    A wind energy project is any installation of technologies that 
generates electricity, fuel or

[[Page 67150]]

other usable energy by harnessing the power of wind.
    A biomass energy project is any installation of technologies 
that generate electricity, fuel or other usable energy derived from 
biomass, and may include co-firing or co-gasification techniques if 
biomass is responsible for 51% or more of the energy produced. The 
term ``biomass'' means any lignin waste material that is segregated 
from other waste materials and is determined to be nonhazardous by 
the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and any 
solid, nonhazardous, cellulosic material that is derived from--
    (A) Any of the following forest-related resources: mill 
residues, pre-commercial thinnings, slash, brush, or non-
merchantable material;
    (B) Solid wood waste materials, including waste pallets, crates, 
dunnage, manufacturing and construction wood wastes (other than 
pressure-treated, chemically treated, or painted wood wastes), and 
landscape or right-of-way tree trimmings; but not including 
municipal solid waste (garbage), gas derived from the biodegradation 
of solid waste, or paper that is commonly recycled;
    (C) Agriculture wastes, including orchard tree crops, vineyard, 
grain, legumes, sugar, and other crop by-products or residues; and 
livestock waste nutrients; or
    (D) A plant that is grown exclusively as a fuel for the 
production of electricity.
    (2) Distributed Generation by Photovoltaic and Fuel Cell Energy 
Projects. A photovoltaic or fuel cell project must produce 
distributed generation to be eligible for National Priority Project 
Designation. DOE considers distributed generation to be any power 
source that is designed to power an end user within a radius of one 
mile from the source.
    A photovoltaic energy project is any installation of 
technologies that converts light directly into electricity through a 
solid-state, semiconductor process.
    A fuel cell energy project is any application of technologies 
that uses fuel cells to store or transport energy. The term ``fuel 
cell'' means a device that directly converts the chemical energy of 
a fuel and an oxidant into electricity by electrochemical processes 
occurring at separate electrodes in the device.
    (3) Building Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Projects. 
This category of eligible projects consists of energy-efficient 
buildings and building-based renewable energy projects.
    An energy-efficient building project is one that will retrofit 
an existing building or build a new building such that the building 
performs all of its intended roles while using significantly less 
energy than conventional building stock. DOE considers the term 
``new building'' to mean a building that is completed to the point 
of being ready for occupancy not earlier than two years before the 
date of the application for National Priority Project Designation.
    A renewable energy project is one using technology that 
generates electricity or usable energy in the form of heat, steam, 
or fuel from any of the following sources: solar, wind, biomass, 
landfill gas, ocean (including tidal, wave, current, and thermal), 
geothermal, municipal solid waste, or new hydroelectric generation 
capacity achieved from increased efficiency or additions of new 
capacity at an existing hydroelectric project.
    (4) First-in-Class Building Energy Efficiency and Renewable 
Energy Projects. DOE considers a first-in-class project to be one 
that incorporates a new energy-related technology or technique not 
used before, not used in the same manner before, or not used on the 
same scale before.

B. Time of Construction

    DOE will accept award applications both for projects that are 
being planned (are under construction or will begin construction 
within the next two years) and projects that are complete (were 
completed within the past two years).

II. Designation Criteria

    To obtain the National Priority Project Designation, a project 
must:
     Utilize energy-efficient or renewable energy 
technologies and fit into one of the four categories of projects 
identified in Section I.A. of these guidelines;
     Be located within the United States; and
     Meet the following criteria (for applicable category):
     [cir] For wind and biomass--the project must involve the 
installation of not less than 30 megawatts of renewable energy 
generation capacity.\1\
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    \1\ For purposes of the National Priority Project Designation, 
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has defined the term 
``capacity'' to mean the maximum amount of energy that can be 
generated or stored by a device at any given time. For example, the 
capacity for a wind turbine would be the maximum electricity (Watts) 
it could generate given ideal wind speeds. The capacity of an energy 
storage device would be the total amount of energy that can be 
stored in the device under ideal conditions.
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     [cir] For PV and fuel cells--the project must involve the 
installation of not less than 3 megawatts of renewable energy 
generation capacity.
     [cir] For buildings--the project must have all of the following 
attributes:
      Meet guidelines for Leadership in Energy and 
Environmental Design (LEED) certification (any level);
      Use whole-building integration of energy efficiency 
and environmental performance design and technology, including 
advanced building controls;
      Use renewable energy for at least 50% of the energy 
consumption of the project;
      Use ENERGY STAR[supreg]-labeled products wherever 
possible; and
      Include at least 5 million square feet of enclosed 
space (not necessarily all in one building or at a single site). 
``Enclosed'' means space closed off from the elements that is 
heated, cooled, or both.
     [cir] For first-in-class building projects--the project must 
represent a first-in-class use of renewable energy or a new paradigm 
of building-integrated renewable energy use or energy efficiency. 
Any project establishing a new paradigm would need to include 
techniques that fundamentally change the assumptions made about 
energy systems as they relate to building science. This category 
could potentially include innovative project-financing approaches. 
There are no scale parameters for first-in-class building projects.

III. DOE Review and Designation

A. Selection Process

    After the close of the application period, DOE will review the 
applications and determine which projects have the potential to 
receive the National Priority Project Designation. DOE will ask the 
applicants of those projects to have a professional engineer inspect 
their project and certify that the information contained in their 
application is correct. The professional engineer may be an employee 
of the applicant organization. Once this is done, DOE will consider 
these projects to be ``certified projects.'' A certified project is 
one that is reasonably expected to meet the selection criteria set 
forth in these Guidelines.
    DOE technical staff will then conduct an additional review of 
all certified projects. This review may involve follow-up questions 
for the applicant organization. At the conclusion of this review, 
the Secretary of Energy will select the projects to be recommended 
to the President for designation as that year's National Priority 
Projects. While the Department of Energy will accept award 
applications in all four project categories, the Secretary of Energy 
may not recommend National Priority Project Designation for projects 
in all categories.
    Any organization that applies for National Priority Project 
Designation may remove its project from consideration at any time.

B. Promotion of Designated Projects

    Organizations whose projects are designated by the President as 
National Priority Projects will receive recognition from the 
Department of Energy in the form of:
     Receipt of a National Priority Project Designation 
medal at a national event;
     National news releases;
     Prominent recognition on the DOE Web site; and
     Other suitable forms of publicity and recognition

C. Additional Information

    (1) Applicants may request confidentiality of information that 
they believe is exempt by law from public disclosure; this 
information must be clearly marked on the application by the 
applicant. DOE intends to honor requests for nondisclosure of 
information to the extent permitted by law, and it will make a final 
determination with regard to disclosure or nondisclosure of the 
information in accordance with DOE's Freedom of Information 
regulations (10 CFR 1004.11).
    (2) Submission of an application for designation does not create 
any obligation on DOE to grant such designation.
    (3) Questions or requests for additional information about 
National Priority Project Designation should be directed to 
nppd@ee.doe.gov.

[FR Doc. E8-27010 Filed 11-12-08; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 6450-01-P