Recovery.gov - Track the Money

The table below describes the current funding profile for OE's ARRA programs.


• Table 1: ARRA Funding Amounts by GRPA Unit

	GPRA Unit Name	Funding ($M)
New	Grid Modernization	4,500

The balance, $490M, is currently unallocated while the proposed activities are being fully developed.



Making investments to modernize the Nation’s electricity grid, securing a diverse and stable supply of reliable energy, and increasing efficiency are central to the Administration's effort to increase energy and economic security. OE is building upon its established program with new activities designed to support the implementation of “Smart Grid” technology. These activities, described below, work together synergistically to maximize the impact on the Nation’s grid and advance the Administration’s goals. The final activity is “Program Direction”, which provides the cost-effective framework for the execution of the other activities.



Smart Grid Investment Grant Program [Energy Independence Security Act (EISA, Sec. 1306)]: $3.3 billion is currently targeted for a competitive, merit-based matching grant program to stimulate investments by electric utilities and other entities for the deployment of Smart Grid technology.



Smart Grid Regional and Energy Storage Demonstration Projects (EISA, Sec. 1304): $700 million is currently targeted to fund competitively awarded financial assistance projects for 1) regionally unique Smart Grid demonstration projects, 2) phasor measurement system demonstration and testing for a wide area, real time measurement and control network, 3) electrical energy storage demonstration and development projects and 4) demonstration and development projects for Smart Grid technologies.



Interoperability Standards and Framework (EISA, Sec. 1305): $10 million will support the development of interoperability standards and a framework to ensure effective and consistent application of Smart Grid technologies.



Program Direction: $22.5 million will be spent by OE in order to fully manage, oversee, and properly execute the Recovery funds as intended and according to the OMB and DOE reporting requirements. Until the enactment of the Recovery Act, OE has operated under an annual funding of approximately $137 million. The Recovery Act provides an additional $4.5 billion in FY 2009, which is about 33 times more than OE’s annual appropriation. For Program Direction, OE has prioritized a number of Smart Grid initiatives to be funded by the Recovery Act that leverage existing departmental and office resources and systems, and ensures maximum effectiveness and transparency.

DOE Corporate Approach


Recovery Leadership & Operations

The DOE Recovery Office is the central point for implementation and execution of Recovery Act activities. A recovery operations team will oversee implementation management, such as monitoring project status, evaluating cost and schedule progress, ensuring thorough reporting, coordinating with external entities, and holding monthly performance and review meetings with senior departmental managers on the implementation status of specific recovery projects.



Recovery Funding Oversight, Performance

In addition to DOE’s standard funds control mechanisms, Recovery Act funds are subject to additional process controls to ensure funds are not co-mingled, are tracked to enable reporting, and are spent responsibly. DOE recovery funds are released for implementation in a staged approach. Programs develop initial project plans which include performance metrics which require management approval.



Office of Internal Review (OIR)

DOE’s OIR helps programs ensure that internal controls are in place, effective, and support the risk based approach to managing Recovery Act activities. OIR programs are being implemented or expanded to ensure the Recovery Act objectives are met and DOE managers and partners are both held accountable for successful execution and also have the appropriate tools to ensure that success. These programs include coordinating DOE’s “Internal Control Acknowledgment” program, conducting agency wide assessments and analyses and performing oversight of Recovery Act programs, including site and field visits. OIR worked with key impacted programs to produce initial vulnerability assessments identifying potential program specific and cross-cutting risks to ensure successful execution.



OE Specific Approach


OE’s monitoring and evaluation plan is an adaptation of the one in use for baseline activities, provides maximum transparency in a cost-effective manner, and includes the following key features:


1. Integrates with the DOE corporate controls and DOE departmental mechanisms, including the DOE Recovery Office, the central point for implementation and execution of Recovery Act activities, and the Office of Internal Review, which ensures appropriate management of funds;

2. Segregates and applies additional controls to Recovery Act funds;

3. Uses Corporate Planning System to track the programmatic and financial performance of grants, augmented to track value associated with milestones and to provide alarms when necessary;

4. Uses various data collection mechanisms, including formal status reports, project reviews, demonstrations, site visits, and technical reviews, to ensure that OE maintains the latest, most accurate programmatic and financial status for each award;

5. Employs personnel skilled in grants administration and in the appropriate program management and technical domain areas;

6. Provides to OE and departmental management a quick-look report highlighting risk areas and potential problems on a monthly basis and appropriate detailed reports on a quarterly, monthly, or ad-hoc basis;

7. Uses modern risk management principles and techniques to continuously address risks and vulnerabilities;

8. Uses a NARA- compliant records management system to maintain official agency records;

9. Supports the Recovery Act monitoring and reporting requirements for financial, schedule, and performance data;

10. Includes comprehensive training on ethics, conduct, reporting, records management, and other Recovery Act requirements for federal staff, contractors, and awardees; and

11. Employs continuous verification and validation of activities, business processes, and databases at the Office, Activity, and Award level

DOE Corporate


DOE leverages its existing corporate systems to track and report on Recovery Act activities and to ensure effective funds management. The DOE’s iManage Data Warehouse (IDW) is a corporate enterprise system integrating financial, budgetary, procurement, and program information to monitor project execution. Each Recovery Act program is tracked using unique Treasury Appropriation Fund Symbols (TAFS), and each component project is identified by a unique Project Identification Code (PIC).



IDW is a central data warehouse linking common data elements from each of the Department’s corporate business systems and serving as a “knowledge bank” of information about portfolios, programs or projects including budget execution, accumulated costs, performance achieved, and critical milestones met. The IDW contains information from multiple corporate systems and will be a tool used to meet information needs for Recovery Act oversight and reporting to Recovery.gov.



The Performance Measure Manager (PMM) is the Department’s performance tracking system. PMM tracks high-level budgetary performance and is being expanded to accommodate Recovery Act performance tracking needs. Performance evaluations will be organized and reported along with results from the Department’s annual budgetary activities in the Annual Performance Report (APR) and posted on: www.energy.gov/recovery/. Performance results will be uploaded into the IDW for required agency reporting.



See DOE’s Agency Wide Recovery Plan for additional information on DOE’s financial and performance tracking mechanisms, found here: www.energy.gov/recovery.



OE Specific


Program management staff in both OE and NETL will have oversight for the programs listed above and in some cases, OE will partner with other DOE program offices or other federal agencies to run these programs. These program entities are all well versed in the reporting requirements for the Recovery Act and in the best management practices for overall project management. They are poised to meet all the accountability and transparency needed for Recovery Act compliance.
OE is currently using an in-house program management information technology system called the Corporate Planning System (CPS). This system is being enhanced to house in one place all of the technical, budgetary and performance data necessary to comply with all required Recovery Act reporting from the award recipient and potential subcontractor. This system will allow OE to upload information to other internal DOE systems that will ultimately allow reporting to the Recovery.gov website for public review. As a part of complying with monthly Recovery Act reporting requirements and updates, program managers will be provided customized reports from CPS to highlight any program issues such as delayed milestones or budgetary issues.


OE has implemented an electronic Records Management system to support the office’s compliance with DOE Order 243.1, presidential initiatives, and the E-Government Act and other related legislation. The system has been leveraged to provide a centralized repository for all OE-developed documents and records associated with the program, all records generated during the grant request evaluation process or other procurement process, and all reports and other essential communications received from funding recipients. The Records Management system provides version control and configuration management for documents under development as well as an auditable trail of the OE decision-making process and management oversight from initial planning through final implementation.

Although OE’s activities are not designed to directly impact federal infrastructure or to reduce DOE’s environmental impact, they will have direct long term effects on the efficiency and reliability of the Nation’s energy infrastructure. Federal leadership in stimulating the overhaul of the electrical grid to utilize Smart Grid technology will have significant effects on increasing energy efficiency resulting in the reduction of greenhouse gases and energy costs. The implementation of these activities will allow for clean, renewable sources of energy to be supplied to consumers across the electrical grid in a reliable manner. Providing these energy sources to consumers will increase the utilization of green energy sources in the green building trade.