The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $20 million grant for a research project at Iowa colleges and universities to build the state’s research capacity in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The core of the project will be conducted at the three state universities, and the program also includes partnerships with the Iowa’s community colleges, private colleges, school districts, government agencies and industries.

The program will be built on four major platforms:

    * Bioenergy, which will investigate the challenges of sustainably producing large quantaties of biomass.
    * Wind energy, which will use advanced engineering platforms to improve the reliability of wind turbines.
    * Energy policy, which will explore ways for engineers and economists to collaborate and advise lawmakers on renewable energy issues.
    * Energy utilization, which will study the role social sciences play in understanding how people change energy habits.

The program will be chaired by Robert Brown, director of Iowa State University’s Bioeconomy Institute. It also will be led by P. Barry Butler, executive vice president and provost at the University of Iowa, Kevin Nordmeyer, director of the Iowa Energy Center in Ames, and Chitra Rajan, associate vice president for research at Iowa State.

The Iowa Power Fund has also granted the project $2 million to pay for research equipment.