Shankar Earni

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technology Validation (ITV) program relies on rigorous Measurement and Verification (M&V) to validate new industrial technologies, document their performance, and accelerate commercialization. ITV’s M&V approach and process follows the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP), which begins with planning, baseline data collection, implementation, post-implementation analysis, and reporting.

This work highlights key technologies and results from case studies of initial projects demonstrating the application of IPMVP and challenges in diverse industrial settings. Additionally, this work addresses challenges in M&V, including data limitations, sensor failures, operational inconsistencies, and non-routine events. Properly accounting for these factors through routine and non-routine adjustments is critical to ensuring the accurate documentation of a technology’s impact. Such challenges can lead to modeling complexities, lower goodness of fit, and increased uncertainty. Furthermore, the lack of tools or techniques to evaluate non-energy benefits (e.g., improved productivity, better quality, enhanced throughput)—often key to industrial adoption—remains a significant gap in the field. Additionally, we’ll discuss the complexities of projecting the impact of these technologies beyond current conditions, considering different levels of adoption and baseline scenarios. Some solutions and approaches to these challenges will be proposed and discussed with the audience.