The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized DOE to provide $75 million in incentive payments for Section 243: Hydroelectric Efficiency Improvement Incentives Program. Owners or operators of existing hydroelectric facilities, including pumped storage hydropower, may apply for funding to make capital improvements that can improve their efficiency by at least 3%. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law states that payments shall not exceed 30% of the costs of the applicable capital improvement. A single qualified hydroelectric facility, including pumped storage hydropower, may only receive one incentive payment from this program within a single fiscal year, and that payment shall not exceed $5 million.

The hydroelectric production incentive payments are a benefit available for electric energy generation and sold for a specified 10-year period as authorized under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, DOE received $125 million to support this hydroelectric production incentive. At this time, DOE is accepting applications from owners and authorized operators of qualified hydroelectric facilities for hydroelectricity generated and sold in calendar years 2021 and 2022.

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Competitive Program will award $8.8 million to local governments, state-recognized tribes, or teams of these communities. EECBG Program recipients can use the funding for a wide variety of projects that lower energy costs, reduce carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency, and reduce overall energy use.

The Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land will demonstrate the technical and economic viability of deploying clean energy on current (operating) and former (abandoned or inactive) mine land. Up to five clean energy projects will be carried out in geographically diverse regions, at least two of which must be solar projects. These demonstration projects are expected to be replicable, providing knowledge and experience that catalyze the next generation of clean energy on mine land projects.

This program will support all U.S. states, including Washington, D.C. and U.S. territories, in accelerating the deployment of smart manufacturing technologies by SMMs by providing financial assistance to SMMs to implement smart manufacturing technologies and practices and broaden access to high-performance computing resources. With this funding, states and territories will be able to create new programming or build on existing programs that provide technical assistance to SMMs. Applicants are encouraged to submit proposals for funding that cover initiatives such as, but not limited to:

• Promoting the benefits of smart manufacturing technologies among SMMs based on national and regional economic development and supply chain priorities;
• Identifying and providing financial assistance to facilitate SMMs’ access to and implementation of smart manufacturing and high-performance computing resources and technologies; and
• Securing partnerships with labor unions and other stakeholders to expand and diversify the smart manufacturing talent pool and develop, promote, and scale adoption of smart manufacturing training.

The DOE Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) is leading a $156 million funding opportunity that will advance high impact applied research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the U.S. industrial sector.

The FOA includes the following topics: Decarbonizing Industrial Heat; Low-Carbon Fuels Utilization RD&D; Exploratory Cross-Sector R&D; Enabling Flexible Industrial Energy Use; Decarbonizing Chemicals; Decarbonizing Iron and Steel; Decarbonizing Food and Beverage Products; Decarbonizing Cement and Concrete; and Decarbonizing Forest Products.

EERE envisions awarding multiple financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements. The estimated period of performance for each award will be approximately three years.

The FOA provides funding for research, development, and demonstration to:

• Improve the efficiency, increase the durability, and reduce the cost of producing clean hydrogen using electrolyzers to less than $2 per kilogram by 2026
• Advance new manufacturing technologies and techniques for clean hydrogen production and use equipment, specifically for electrolyzer and fuel cell technologies
• Create innovative and practical approaches to increase the reuse and recycling of clean hydrogen and fuel cell technologies

The following topics, in two areas of interest, are included in this funding opportunity.

Area of Interest 1: Clean Hydrogen Electrolysis Program

1. Low Cost, High-Throughput Electrolyzer Manufacturing
2. Electrolyzer Component and Supply Chain Development
3. Advanced Electrolyzer Technology and Component Development

Area of Interest 2: Clean Hydrogen Manufacturing and Recycling

1. Fuel Cell Membrane Electrode Assembly and Stack Manufacturing and Automation
2. Fuel Cell Supply Chain Development
3. Recovery and Recycling Consortium

The purpose of the Pollution Prevention Grant: Environmental Justice Through Safer/Sustainable Products is for state and tribal programs to provide pollution prevention (P2) technical assistance to businesses (e.g., information, training, expert advice) in order to improve human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities by increasing the supply, demand and use of safer and more sustainable products, such as those that are certified by EPA’s Safer Choice program, or those that conform to EPA’s Recommendations for Specifications, Standards and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing (Recommendations).

The purpose of the Pollution Prevention Grant: Environmental Justice in Communities is for state and tribal programs to provide P2 technical assistance to businesses (e.g., information, training, expert advice) on source reduction, also known as pollution prevention (P2). Grantees must demonstrate that the project will improve human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities by implementing P2 approaches. P2 approaches can help businesses reduce the use and release of hazardous substances that can harm human health and the environment while also saving money by reducing their resource use, expenditures, waste and liability costs.

The Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI Program) is a new competitive grant program created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to strategically deploy publicly accessible electric vehicle charging and alternative fueling infrastructure in the places people live and work – urban and rural areas alike – in addition to along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors (AFCs). CFI Program investments will make modern and sustainable infrastructure accessible to all drivers of electric, hydrogen, propane, and natural gas vehicles. This program provides two funding categories of grants: (1) Community Charging and Fueling Grants (Community Program); and (2) Alternative Fuel Corridor Grants (Corridor Program).

The Industrial Demonstrations Program will fund projects that focus on the highest emitting and hardest to abate industries where decarbonization technologies can have the greatest impact: iron and steel, cement and concrete, chemicals and refining, food and beverage, paper and forest products, aluminum, other energy-intensive manufacturing industries and cross-cutting technologies. Widespread demonstration and deployment of projects within these industries will support President Biden’s initiative to rebuild U.S. leadership in manufacturing as countries, companies, and consumers around the world shift to low- to no-carbon commodities to meet their own decarbonization goals.

Through this FOA, DOE makes available up to $820 million of federal funding at a maximum of 70% federal cost share for up to ten (10) carbon capture large-scale pilot projects designed to further the development of transformational technologies that capture carbon emissions from existing coal or natural gas electric generation facilities and existing industrial facilities not purposed for electric generation. These carbon capture large-scale pilot projects must be integrated with commercial plant operations and conducted in the United States. DOE may issue additional carbon capture large-scale pilot FOAs in the future. Using multiple FOAs can help enable the validation of transformational carbon capture technologies with different maturation timelines in a large-scale pilot project once they reach the appropriate technology readiness level.