Since 1996, the US Department of Energy's Office of Industrial Technologies (USDOE) has been involved in a unique voluntary collaboration with industry called the Allied Partner program. Initially developed under the Motor Challenge program, the partnership concept continues as a central element of USDOE's BestPractices, which in 2001 integrated all of USDOE's near-term industrial program offerings including those in motors, compressed air, pump, fan, process heating and steam systems. Partnerships are sought with end use industrial companies as well as equipment suppliers and manufacturers, utilities, consultants, and state agencies that have extensive existing relationships with industrial customers. This paper describes in detail two new types of program initiatives involving Allied Partners: Qualified Specialist Training and Energy Events. The Qualified Specialist activity was conceived as a way of engaging the supply side of industry, consultants, and utilities to greatly increase use of decision making software developed by USDOE to assist industrial facilities in assessing the energy efficiency of their energy-using systems. To date, USDOE has launched Qualified Specialist training with member companies of the Hydraulic Institute (HI) and with distributors and consultants associated with the Compressed Air Challenge. These activities train and qualify industry professionals to use and to train customers to use USDOE's Pumping System Assessment Tool (PSAT) and AIRMaster + software programs, respectively. The industry experts provide a public benefit by greatly increasing customer access to the software and assessment techniques.
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