The competition engages students across disciplines—engineering, finance, urban planning, sustainability, communications, and more—to reimagine how energy is generated, managed, and used in a district. For the Class of 2023–2024, students will have access to an enhanced training platform to support innovation and learning. Student teams will also have two options for their district use cases: (1) assignment to a district use case defined by competition organizers, or (2) a bring-your-own-district division in which students may self-select their district use case, collecting and using the district’s available data on their own, with data synthesis support from competition organizers. All student teams choosing to bring their own district will compete in a division against other teams bringing their own districts. Additionally, the Solar District Cup Class of 2023–2024 will open a division for one-semester or two-quarter participation in the winter/spring.

Through the Solar Ambassador Prize, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will award a total of $3.5 million to up to 20 community organizations to help accelerate the installation of residential solar and battery storage systems on an estimated 30,000 – 40,000 homes across Puerto Rico. Solar Ambassadors will initially receive $15,000 in seed funding and will be eligible for compensation based on the number of households enrolled for residential solar and battery storage home inspections. Community-based organizations, nonprofits, and for-profit entities with an existing presence in Puerto Rico are eligible to apply to become Solar Ambassadors.

This Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund (PR-ERF) FOA provides up to $450 million to support residential solar PV and battery storage installations and offer consumer protection and education resources. Potential applicants may include private industry, educational institutions, state and local governmental entities, non-profit organizations, and energy cooperatives. Through this deployment-focused funding, DOE aims to incentivize the installation of roughly 30,000–40,000 residential solar and battery systems. Qualified beneficiaries of the systems installed by selected partners will include very low-income, single-family households that are either located in areas that have a high percentage of very low-income households and experience frequent and prolonged power outages or contain a family member with an energy-dependent disability, such as individuals who need electric wheelchairs for mobility or those that use at-home dialysis machines.

• The Home Efficiency Rebates Program will offer $4,300,000,000 in formula grants to state energy offices to reduce the upfront cost of whole-home energy efficiency upgrades in single-family and multi-family homes. The value of an eligible home’s rebate depends on the predicted energy savings attributable to the project.
• The Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates Program will offer $4,275,000,000 in formula grants to state energy offices to reduce the upfront cost of efficient electric technologies in single-family and multi-family homes. This program also provides $225,000,000 in grants to Indian tribes, however tribal guidance and application instructions are forthcoming through a separate, upcoming announcement.

The Carbon Utilization Procurement Grants program will help offset 50% of the costs to states, local governments, and public utilities or agencies to procure and use products developed through the conversion of captured carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions. The commercial or industrial products to be procured and used under these grants must demonstrate a significant net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to incumbent products via a life cycle analysis (LCA). The LCAs are checked for conformance and approved by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program is designed to assist states, local governments, and Tribes in implementing strategies to reduce energy use, to reduce fossil fuel emissions, and to improve energy efficiency. Example activities include:

• Development of an energy efficiency and conservation strategy if one is not submitted with application
• Development of the energy efficiency and conservation elements of an energy-related plan such as a climate action plan or local or tribal government’s sustainability plan
• Expansion of an existing strategy to address new goals

The Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program was established in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help fund community-led projects that mitigate physical barriers to mobility and access, such as train tracks or highways. The Inflation Reduction Act established the Neighborhood Access and Equity Program that similarly funds projects that remove physical barriers as well as projects to improve walkability, safety, and affordable transportation access, particularly in low-income and disadvantaged communities. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) has released a joint Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), which will combine the two major discretionary grants into one NOFO.

Under the B2S program, EDA awards and manages a portfolio of grants designed to increase regional capacity to strengthen ecosystems that equitably and inclusively support diverse technology innovators, entrepreneurs, and startups. These regions are growing technology-driven businesses, creating high-skill, high-wage jobs, and building the industries of the future.

• The Venture Challenge funds organizations that enable startups to become the next generation of globally competitive, industry-leading companies and supports regions in overcoming barriers that prevent would-be innovators from accessing these opportunities.
• Capital Challenge awards provide programmatic and operational support for the formation, launch, or scale of investment funds that seek to provide access to the kinds of capital that enable technology companies to start and scale.

The Tech Hubs Program is an economic development initiative designed to drive regional technology- and innovation-centric growth by strengthening a region’s capacity to manufacture, commercialize, and deploy critical technologies. This program will invest directly in regions with the assets, resources, capacity, and potential to transform into globally competitive innovation centers in approximately 10 years while catalyzing the creation of good jobs for American workers at all skill levels, both equitably and inclusively. EDA will designate at least 20 Tech Hubs across the country and will separately award approximately $15 million in strategy development grants to accelerate the development of future Tech Hubs. The Tech Hubs designation will be a widely recognized indicator of a region’s potential for rapid technology-led economic growth.

Sea Grant and the NOAA Climate Program Office seek to establish programs aimed at at placing people across the country into good jobs that advance climate resilience and assisting employers in developing a 21st century workforce that is climate literate, informed by climate resilience, and skilled at addressing consequent challenges. NOAA envisions making between 10-20 awards under this competition, at amounts ranging from $500,000-$10 million each. NOAA expects projects to range in duration from 24 months to 48 months, beginning no earlier than August 1, 2024. This opportunity is open to state, tribal, territorial and local governments, institutions of higher education, and non-profit organizations in coastal states or territories. Resources from NOAA’s Climate Program Office, Office for Coastal Management, and National Sea Grant Office and its partners will be available to provide technical assistance to applicants and recipients to support these innovative efforts.

The GRRP Comprehensive cohort provides funding to properties with a high need for investment in utility efficiency and climate resilience. Property owners need no prior experience with recapitalization transactions or green construction, as support will be provided to commission assessments and develop the property’s recapitalization plan. GRRP will provide up to $20 million per property or $80k per unit to cover:

• Added cost of a greener or more resilient alternative to a rehab
  component (for example, heat exchangers instead of a standard
  boiler)
• 50% of the GRRP Award is reserved for the cost of high impact utility efficiency, carbon reduction, renewable energy generation, and
  climate resilient investments (for example, solar or wind power)
• Transaction costs necessary to complete retrofit (up to 30% of the
  GRRP award)

The Office of Global Partnerships (GP) of the U.S. Department of State (DOS) announces an open competition for organizations to submit a statement of interest (SOI) to carry out a program (or programs) to expand and amplify the Department’s response to the climate crisis and capitalize on the resources of GP’s Coalition for Climate Entrepreneurship program (CCE). The Office of Global Partnerships (GP) of the U.S. Department of State (DOS) has launched the Climate Solutions and Sustainable Entrepreneurship Fund (CSSEF) to drive sustainability focused programming in makerspaces, community centers, and technology labs in developing economies that strive to capacitate local entrepreneurs and increase their ability to scale climate solutions to market. GP hopes to help create local communities of entrepreneurs and entrepreneur-support organizations around these hubs that are more market-savvy, more resourced, more cooperative amongst each other, and better able to generate climate solutions. SOIs that work to enable an economic response to the climate crisis, such as coaching and mentorship curriculum, capital-raising guidance, recruitment and education of environmentally focused entrepreneurs, event management, and other economic engagement are welcome.