UCLA's Clean Energy Research Center - Los Angeles (CERC-LA) is Awarded an EcoPartnership by U.S. Department of State

The Clean Energy Research Center - Los Angeles (CERC-LA) located at UCLA, has been awarded a prestigious EcoPartnership by the U.S. Department of State.  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed the five new U.S.-China EcoPartnerships during a signing ceremony which took place in the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing, China, on May 3, 2012. U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern and China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Vice Chairman Xie Zhenhua, co-chaired the event. Also present were Science Advisor to President Obama, Dr. John Holdren, and U.S. Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs, Reta Jo Lewis.

 CERC-LA's partners in China include the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC), Peking University (PKU) and Fudan University. Representing UCLA at the event were Professor Lei He, Director of CERC-LA and Michael Swords, Executive Director of Strategic Research Initiatives and Global Partnerships at UCLA.

This EcoPartnership will enlist a consortium of clean energy and climate change leaders from American and Chinese universities, think tanks, and the private sector to conduct joint research on smart grids, intelligent vehicles, and electric vehicles. The consortium is building a joint research laboratory on smart grid technology at PKU that will serve as a hub for researchers and students, particularly from the U.S. The leadership of the EcoPartnership believes that this facility in Beijing will enable the students to better understand China’s low-carbon, energy development initiatives. A secondary goal of the initiative is to facilitate economic growth and clean tech sector job creation in the U.S. and China.

The United States and China signed the Framework for EcoPartnerships under the U.S.-China Ten-Year Framework for Cooperation on Energy and Environment (EcoPartnerships Framework) in Beijing in December 2008. The EcoPartnerships Framework is aimed at developing new models of mutually beneficial voluntary arrangements between a range of state, local, and private sector organizations to spur innovation, investment, and engagement on clean energy and environmental issues, including climate change.

The Clean Energy Research Center – Los Angeles (CERC-LA), was created by UCLA to address many of the grand challenges related to the generation, transmission, storage and management of energy. As many energy challenges are global in nature, this new center will engage the participation of a multi-disciplinary group of researchers from many different nations. The director of this new center is Professor Lei He from UCLA’s Electrical Engineering department.

Read more information on CERC-LA and on EcoPartnerships.