The Grid Resilience Analysis and Climate Change Impacts funding (GRACI) opportunity allows the development of a consortium of universities, non-profit, and for-profit organizations to provide technical assistance to grant recipients of the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants Program. The primary role of these research consortia is to accelerate analysis of climate change threats and impacts on electric grid infrastructure, describe best practices for grid operations and investments, and provide additional information and analysis to state energy officials, public service commissions, and utilities to aid in grid resilience planning and decision-making.

The New Futures Fellowship is a three-month remote fellowship program that focuses on innovative and interdisciplinary solutions to the climate crisis. This fellowship brings together activists and scholars from around the globe to conduct research, make policy recommendations, and produce creative digital content. Our 2024 fellowship is centered around two critical themes: Climate + River Delta Communities and Clean Energy + Environmental Justice. From May 28, 2024, to September 6, 2024, fellows will collaborate in teams, taking on roles as researchers, campaigners, communicators, and policy analysts.

NASA is especially interested in proposals from or partnered with domestic non-Federal organizations from community-based non-profit institutions, Tribal governments and academic institutions, Indigenous-supporting organizations, local governments, and academic institutions active in addressing EEJ issues that would benefit from the insights offered by NASA Earth science information. For this solicitation, Earth science information includes Earth-observing satellite measurements and derived information products; outputs and predictive capabilities from Earth science models that input satellite data; and other geospatial products derived from spaceborne data.

NASA requests proposals developed in collaboration with underserved and
overburdened communities, that involve a co-design process to address community
interests to use Earth science information in decisions, actions, and policies. Each
proposal should address three components: 1) Assessment and Consultation, 2) Tool
Design, Test, and Implementation, and 3) Evaluation and Capacity Building.

This solicitation calls for proposals that support communities in building their resilience to climate change by utilizing NASA Earth observations. To achieve this objective in a scalable way, proposals must involve organizations that assist in knowledge sharing between scientists and decision makers, have established relationships within communities, and have experience working with communities to build climate resilience.

These organizations are called boundary organizations. Through this approach, NASA seeks to enhance the capacity of communities and boundary organizations to utilize NASA Earth observations. Proposals must include communities as equal partners in the development of climate-informed actions that enhance community-level resilience to episodic and chronic climate stressors. Key objectives include:
• Advance the capacity of communities and boundary organizations to utilize
NASA Earth observations to enhance community-level climate resilience
• Advance access to and integration of NASA Earth observations in community
decision making related to climate resilience
• Advance local solutions that are transferable, scalable, contribute to climate
knowledge, and inform climate action
• Enable communities to achieve their resilience goals beyond the project’s
completion

This FOA is being issued by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to invest in innovative social science research that generates actionable insights to improve large-scale solar (LSS) siting processes and outcomes for host communities—particularly those that are disadvantaged—and the solar industry. This funding opportunity will support research on the social dimensions of siting LSS facilities that are 1 MWdc or larger and located on private land. LSS facilities may or may not include storage. The goal of this FOA is to generate actionable insights that can guide solar energy developers and owner/operators, local, state, federal, and Tribal governments, landowners, community organizations, and other stakeholders to improve LSS siting processes and outcomes for host communities and the solar industry.

This FOA supports the vision outlined in the U.S. National Clean Hydrogen
Strategy and Roadmap of affordable clean hydrogen for a net-zero carbon
future and a sustainable, resilient, and equitable economy. It targets five topics
of interest critical to enabling increased adoption of clean hydrogen technologies
across sectors, particularly in medium- and heavy-duty (MD/HD) vehicles and
other heavy-duty transportation applications. This FOA will fund projects under the following topic areas:

• Topic 1: Components for Hydrogen Fueling of Medium- and Heavy-Duty (MD/HD) Vehicles.
• Topic 2: Standardized Hydrogen Refueling Station of the Future.
• Topic 3: Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Powered Port Equipment.
• Topic 4: Enabling Permitting and Safety for Hydrogen Deployment.
• Topic 5: Equitable Hydrogen Technology Community Engagement.

RAISE discretionary grants help project sponsors at the state and local levels, including municipalities, Tribal governments, counties, and others complete critical freight and passenger transportation infrastructure projects. The eligibility requirements of RAISE allow project sponsors to obtain funding for projects that may be harder to support through other U.S. DOT grant programs. Half of the funding will go to projects in rural areas, and half of the funding will go to projects in urban areas. At least $15 million in funding is guaranteed to go towards projects located in Areas of Persistent Poverty or Historically Disadvantaged Communities, and projects located in these areas will be eligible for up to 100 percent federal cost share, as directed in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) has up to $225 million to grant to Tribal governments and Alaska Native entities for Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates. This program will provide up to $14,000 per eligible household for energy efficiency and electrification home upgrades.

EPA’s new Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants program (Community Change Grants) has announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for approximately $2 billion dollars in Inflation Reduction Act funds in environmental and climate justice activities to benefit disadvantaged communities through projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, and build community capacity to address environmental and climate justice challenges. These place-based investments will be focused on community-driven initiatives to be responsive to community and stakeholder input. They are designed to deliver on the transformative potential of the IRA for communities most adversely and disproportionately impacted by climate change, legacy pollution, and historical disinvestments.

DOE will invest approximately $3.9 billion across three programs covered by this FOA for the Fiscal Years (FY) 2024 through FY 2025 to deploy technologies to increase grid reliability and resilience. Together DOE refers to these programs as the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program. The GRIP Program focuses on these topic areas:

• Grid Resilience Grants – supports activities that reduce the likelihood and consequence of impacts to the electric grid due to extreme weather, wildfire, and natural disaster.
• Smart Grid Grants – supports projects that will achieve the goals and objectives set out in FOA Section I.A.ii through innovative and ambitious uses of cutting-edge, market-ready technologies.
• Grid Innovation Program – seeks applications that may include technical and/or non-technical (e.g., focused on regulatory or business model innovation) approaches that improve grid reliability and resilience on the local, regional, and interregional scales.

In November 2023, the Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technology Office (SETO) launched the Equitable Solar Communities of Practice program to support the expansion of equitable benefits in solar adoption. A community of practice, for the purposes of this program, is a group of organizations with expertise in equitable solar, to include one ‘lead organization’ and up to six ‘core team members’ that will convene regularly to accomplish the specific tasks and deliverables outlined in this opportunity. The Equitable Solar Communities of Practice program is now accepting applications for lead organizations to support five communities of practice across the following categories – equitable access and consumer protections, meaningful household savings, resilience, community-led economic development, and workforce development – aiming to convene stakeholders and experts to identify best practices and pathways to scale equitable solar solutions.