U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

WIP – State and Local Solution Center

Technical Assistance Services

The U.S. Department of Energy Technical Assistance Program (TAP) provides state, local, and tribal officials with resources to advance successful, high impact, and long lasting clean energy policies, program, and projects.  In doing so, TAP supports one of the key missions of the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy—to take clean energy to scale through high impact efforts. TAP does this by focusing on:

  • Key priority areas to address specific market barriers,
  • Resources to disseminate standardized approaches and best practices,
  • Facilitating communication and learning among peers, and
  • Targeted one-on-one assistance.

This approach is illustrated in the graphic below:

This graph is an inverted pyramid with four layers and with each layer representing a high-impact TAP effort and having supporting bullets. 1. Priority Areas: strategic energy planning; program and policy design and implementation; financing mechanisms; data and evaluation, measurement, and verification; and energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. 2. Resources: general education (e.g. fact sheets, 101); case studies, tools for decision making, protocols (e.g. how-to guides, model documents). 3. Peer Exchange and Trainings: monthly regional calls, webinars, conferences, Better Buildings alliances. 4. One-on-One: Level of effort will vary; in-depth efforts will be focused on high-impact efforts, opportunities for replication, filling gaps in the technical assistance marketplace

You can "tap" into TAP in a number of ways: