The SUPERHOT program will support the research and development of technologies that enable the production of geothermal energy from super-hot reservoirs (>375 °C and >22 MPa) for 15 years or more. This program seeks to fund the development of novel technologies for well construction, enhance testing facilities, and optimize reservoir heat extraction to make super-hot geothermal production a reality. The final application deadline is TBD. The program will have two categories:

• Category 1: Technologies related to the construction of robust super-hot wells and validation services for quality assurance of new well designs and materials. This focus will involve new materials, novel well solutions, and state-of-the-art testing facilities to assess these new approaches.

• Category 2: Technologies related to the extraction of heat from the reservoir to the well. The focus of this category is to develop fracture based and non-fracture-based methods for extracting heat from a super-hot reservoir (potentially composed of ductile rocks) to a working fluid in a well.

This NOFO will support high-impact, applied R&D focused on relieving ‘pinch points’ in algal system cultivation and preprocessing, with the goal of improving process economics for biofuels and/or bioproducts. The target audience for this NOFO is algae stakeholders with an interest in commercialization, and the eligible applicants include institutions of higher education, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, state and local governmental entities, and Indian Tribes.

DOE announced it will make up to $48 million available under the fourth opening of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding opportunity to support regional CO2 transport networks that connect sources of CO2 to locations for geologic storage or conversion to value-added products. Expanding commercial CO2 transport and storage supports the development of a large-scale carbon management industry to reduce emissions, provide new job opportunities, and enhance our energy security. This funding opportunity announcement has one area of interest: Front-End Engineering and Design Studies for CO2 Transport Infrastructure (Onshore and Offshore). Eligible applicants include institutions of higher education, for- and non-profit organizations, state and local governments, and tribal nations.

The NAPMP seeks to drive U.S. leadership in advanced packaging and provide the technology and skilled workforce needed for packaging manufacturing in the United States. Within a decade, NAPMP-funded activities, coupled with CHIPS manufacturing incentives, will establish a vibrant, self sustaining, profitable, domestic advanced packaging industry where advanced-node chips manufactured in the United States and abroad can be packaged in appropriate volumes within the United States and innovative designs and architectures are enabled through leading-edge packaging capabilities. In combination with other CHIPS for America education and workforce efforts, NAPMP-funded activities will produce the diverse and capable workforce needed for the success of the domestic packaging sector. The objective of this NOFO is to enable, through R&D, innovative new advanced packaging flows suitable for adoption by U.S. industry

*Full applications will be due 60 days from the date of invitation.

The NSF Trailblazer Engineering Impact Award (TRAILBLAZER) program supports individual investigators who propose novel research projects with the potential to innovatively and creatively address national needs and/or grand challenges, advance US leadership, and catalyze the convergence of engineering and science domains. TRAILBLAZER will support engineers and scientists who leverage their distinctive track record of innovation and creativity to pursue new research directions that are distinct from their previous or current research areas.

NSF-supported science and engineering research increasingly relies on cutting-edge infrastructure. With its Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program and Major Multi-user Facilities (“Major Facilities”) projects, NSF supports infrastructure projects at the lower and higher range of infrastructure project costs, Foundation-wide, across science and engineering research disciplines. The Foundation-wide Mid-scale Research Infrastructure opportunity is intended to provide NSF with an agile, Foundation-wide process to fund experimental research capabilities in the mid-scale range between MRI and Major Multi-user Facilities.

The Science and Technology Centers (STC): Integrative Partnerships program supports exceptionally innovative, complex research and education projects that require large-scale, long-term awards. STCs focus on creating new scientific paradigms, establishing entirely new scientific disciplines, and developing transformative technologies which have the potential for broad scientific or societal impact. STCs conduct world-class research through partnerships among institutions of higher education, national laboratories, industrial organizations, other public or private entities, and via international collaborations, as appropriate. They provide a means to undertake potentially groundbreaking investigations at the interfaces of disciplines and/or highly innovative approaches within disciplines. STCs may involve any area of science and engineering that NSF supports. STC investments support the NSF vision of creating and exploiting new concepts in science and engineering and providing global leadership in research and education. Centers provide a rich environment for encouraging scientists, engineers, and educators to take risks in pursuing discoveries and new knowledge.

This FOA seeks to validate grid-edge technology innovations in real-world situations and provide new tools for utilities, grid planners and operators, automakers and smart charge management service providers, and the communities they serve.

This FOA accelerates progress toward the goal of a clean energy economy for all Americans by optimizing systems with grid-connected buildings and electric vehicles powered by clean, distributed energy generation and demonstrating these advanced technologies are reliable, efficient, secure, and ready for wide-scale adoption.

This FOA has two major topical areas:

• Connected Communities, focused on grid edge technical measures in buildings, industry, and transportation to prepare the electric grid for these new loads, and improve the customer benefits and grid resilience; and
• Smart Charge Management, focused on various unique urban, suburban, and rural use cases to build confidence in it as an effective approach for electric vehicles to provide flexibility and value to the electric grid.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) is issuing this $4.8 million funding opportunity announcement (FOA) “Water Power Innovation Network” to support business creation, entrepreneurship, and regional innovation for water power systems and solutions. WPTO enables research, development, and testing of emerging technologies to advance marine energy as well as next-generation hydropower and pumped storage systems for a flexible, reliable grid. Through this FOA, WPTO seeks to fund new and/or expanded incubator or accelerator programs that enable entrepreneurship and accelerate water power innovation, business creation, and growth in communities and regions throughout the United States. Through this FOA, new and/or expanded incubators and accelerators in water power will be able to collaborate with one another and build a stronger water power innovation network in support of accelerating water power technologies to market.

This program provides loan guarantees up to $250 million to assist in the development, construction, and retrofitting of new and emerging technologies. These technologies are: advanced biofuels, renewable chemicals and biobased products. To apply, you must have legal authority, experience, and expertise and demonstrate that you meet the FDIC definition of “Well Capitalized” at the time of application and issuance of the Loan Note Guarantee, including:

• Federal or state-chartered banks.
• Federally-recognized tribes.
• Cooperatives.
• Farm Credit Bank, or other Farm Credit System institution with direct lending authority.
• Credit Unions subject to credit examination and supervision by a state agency or the National Credit Union Administration.
• The National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced the Fiscal Year 2024 Solar Energy Supply Chain Incubator funding opportunity (FOA), which will provide up to $38 million for research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects that de-risk solar hardware, manufacturing processes, and software products across a wide range of solar technology areas. The research and development (R&D) and demonstration (RD&D) activities to be funded under this FOA will support the government-wide approach to the climate crisis by driving the innovation that can lead to the deployment of clean energy technologies, which are critical for climate protection. Specifically, this FOA will support the DOE decarbonization goals by advancing innovative solar hardware, software, and manufacturing processes across a broad range of technology readiness levels, from laboratory-scale to pilot-scale testing and prototype demonstration. Technologies of interest include photovoltaics (PV), systems integration, and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) technologies, as well as those that connect solar with storage or electric vehicles and dual-use PV applications like agrivoltaics and vehicle-integrated PV. SETO encourages for-profit applicants to team with diverse institutions including academic institutions, non-profits, state and local governments, and Tribal governments. The FOA also seeks projects that provide outreach, education, or technology development for software that delivers an automated permit review and approval process for rooftop solar PV with or without energy storage. Both for-profit and non-profit entities are eligible to apply under this topic. SETO expects to make between 11 and 23 awards ranging from $1 million to $5 million under this FOA. Learn more about past Incubator funding program awardees.

The United States Department of the Interior (Department), Bureau of Reclamation’s (Reclamation) Desalination and Water Purification Research Program (DWPR) works with Reclamation researchers and partners to develop innovative, cost-effective, and technologically efficient ways to desalinate and treat water. DWPR funding plays a critical role in iterating an idea from the lab to a real-world demonstration, yielding products that serve the water treatment community and attract commercialization interest. Reclamation is interested in research where the benefits are widespread but where private-sector entities are not able to make the full investment and assume all the risks. Reclamation is also interested in research that has a national significance—where the issues are of large-scale concern and the benefits accrue to a large sector of the public. The goal of the DWPR program is to address the need to reduce the costs, energy requirements, and environmental impacts of treating impaired and unusable water. The program also aligns with Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” by investing in development and application of advanced water treatment technologies that expand access to otherwise unusable water resources, thereby increasing water supply flexibility under the risks of long-term climate change and shorter-term drought.