Berkeley Lab Energy Technologies Area

The food & beverage industry is central to our economy and livelihood and yet significant aspects of the value chain are outdated and could be optimized for affordability. Berkeley Lab Energy Technologies Area has created the Food & Beverage Operational Optimization and Deployment (FOOD) Center with funding support from U.S. Department of Energy Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation to catalyze innovation in this sector.

The FOOD Center will support the development of technologies that target scalable solutions across the entire value chain. This includes operations in:
- Agriculture
- Food and beverage processing
- Retail and distribution
- Transportation and storage
- Byproducts and waste streams

The outcome will be a RD&D platform that supports public and private investment and enhanced U.S. technological competitiveness.

With the staggering proliferation of data centers across the U.S., energy demand is skyrocketing. To advance options that will reduce the impact of this demand growth on the grid, Berkeley Lab Energy Technologies Area are forming the Data Center Cooling Collaborative with funding support from U.S. Department of Energy Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation.

A central component to the project is a data center cooling testbed network with private and public sector partners working to advance a variety of cooling technologies that reduce data center load on the grid.

Goals of the project are:
- To establish a data center cooling testbed network that supports diverse and evolving cooling needs across a wide range of IT-cooling configurations.
- To promote real-world impact and industry adoption through strong, long-term industry engagement.
- To develop industry-trusted testing protocols, digital twin software, and commercialization pathways.
- To reduce the overall time and cost to bring advanced cooling technologies to market.

Read more about this effort and follow along with our progress here:

Improving U.S. Industrial Competitiveness and Productivity Berkeley Lab projects among Department of Energy awardees for industrial innovation

There is still time to join our REFA webinar. This virtual session will provide users with a detailed introduction to the tool and showcase the easy-to-use interface through real-world tramission line upgrade examples.

The webinar, like the tool, is free and open to the public. Registration is required: https://bit.ly/3Z8J1jf

Berkeley Lab
U.S. Department of Energy