Energy Department wants to save energy

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded contracts for energy conservation at four of its facilities to save about $13 million annually.

Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency David Rodgers said the contracts will also enable $140 million in energy efficiency improvements to the facilities as part of the department's Transformational Energy Action Management, or TEAM, initiative. TEAM is designed to reduce energy use across the department's nationwide complex by at least 30 percent and to reduce water consumption by at least 16 percent, both by 2015.

The contracts are designed to implement energy conservation measures at the Idaho National Laboratory at Idaho Falls, Idaho; the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at Livermore, Calif.; the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh; and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.