This FOA seeks applications to address innovative solutions to retrofit non-powered dams with environmentally sustainable hydropower at a reasonable cost; applications to address development and testing technologies that mitigate challenges to pumped storage hydropower deployment, including market and revenue uncertainty, development costs and financing, long development timelines, permitting challenges, construction risks, and environmental impacts; and applications to address and encourage emerging organizations to support hydropower development. WPTO expects the amount of funding available for projects under this FOA will be approximately $14.5 million and cover the following topic areas:

1. Hydropower Retrofits for Non-Powered Dams;

2. Innovative Pumped Storage Hydropower Technologies; and

3. Hydropower R&D by Emerging Organizations.

Mosaic will distribute $5.5M to build local to national movement infrastructure that enhances diverse and collaborative engagement on four major policies and efforts intersecting with the environmental and justice communities – the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Justice40, and 30×30. Our goal is to move resources quickly to maximize the climate, environmental, and community benefits now possible, and ensure no community bears disproportionate burdens as this effort unfolds.

The SMART program was established to provide grants to eligible public sector agencies to conduct demonstration projects focused on advanced smart community technologies and systems in order to improve transportation efficiency and safety.

The CEC established this grant program in 2021 to fund projects that target underserved and vulnerable communities, and Indigenous communities, in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, to prepare them for climate-related impacts.

The EJ4Climate Grant Program provides funding directly to community-based organizations and seeks to support environmental justice by facilitating the involvement and empowerment of communities searching for solutions and the development of partnerships to address their environmental and human health vulnerabilities, including those due to climate change impacts.

The Energy CLASS Prize is designed to provide training and cash prizes to school district administration and facilities staff to make energy management a sustainable feature of their communities while positioning them to make meaningful infrastructure improvements that will reduce utility costs, improve indoor air quality, and improve learning environments long-term. A total of $4.5 million in awards is available, including $3.75 million in cash prizes for selected LEAs to fund energy management professionals-in-training and an additional $750,000 in technical assistance from Energy CLASS Training Network partners. The Energy CLASS Training Network includes professional training organizations and energy efficiency experts who will provide training and support to Energy CLASS participants.

Collegiate students will be tasked with proposing a regional carbon transport network, defining its business model, and optimizing the transport network across several parameters and with consideration to regional stakeholders, challenges, and cost variability. Enter starting on January 2, 2023 and submission are due on April 14.

This $5.75 million prize was launched by the Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) to pave the way for the cost-effective domestic manufacturing and deployment of commercial utility-scale floating offshore wind energy turbines in U.S. waters. Up to eight winning teams will receive $100,000 each in cash and $75,000 each in vouchers for technical support provided by DOE national laboratories. The winning Phase 1 submissions will be those teams that have:

• • Determined critical hurdles to the commercialization of their floating platform technology.
  • Demonstrated they can make significant progress toward identifying and developing a supply chain within the US to produce the technology.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity launched the $1.1-million Digitizing Utilities Prize to connect utilities with interdisciplinary teams of software developers and data experts to transform digital systems in the energy sector through data analytics, processing, quality assurance, storage, and deletion. The prize supports competitors as they work directly with utility partners to develop software solutions to improve how the energy industry manages, stores, and processes these large data sets.

This prize aims to gain insight on innovative, emerging, and next-generation energy storage technologies to inform DOE’s strategy on transformative storage technologies to accelerate grid modernization and decarbonization. Competitors will propose their grid-scale, long duration-capable energy storage technology innovation with a written summary and accompanying 90-second video. Submissions will be judged on the innovation’s quality including a pathway to the Energy Storage Grand Challenge (ESGC)’s levelized cost of storage (LCOS) 2030 goals, strength of plan, and other unique benefits (supply chain considerations, equity, etc.).

It is vital to note that this competition is focusing only on emerging energy storage technologies. Established technologies that are being considered as part of the SI Framework effort are ineligible to participate in this prize.

The Business Accelerator Fund (BAF) is available to participating business accelerators in Michigan’s statewide SmartZone network. These funds are used toward the delivery of specialized services that are not otherwise available from these business accelerators to assist advanced technology companies regardless of the company’s geography. A participating business accelerator will engage a third-party specialist to help advance the client’s path to commercialization, company success, and economic impact for the state of Michigan.

BAF requests are reviewed and awarded through a competitive process. A company may not receive more than $50,000 in BAF services, though most engagements are in the $7,000 to $15,000 range.

This FOA focuses on innovation of wave energy converters (WECs) for nearshore environments across diverse coastal conditions through long duration at-sea testing and operations (i.e., two weeks to six months) and component/sub-system technology development and testing. It will additionally support commercialization opportunities for novel technologies and a feasibility assessment of an ocean current test facility off the coast of the United States.

WPTO encourages underserved communities and underrepresented groups to participate in this funding opportunity. Applicants are highly encouraged to include individuals from groups historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math on their project teams. Further, minority-serving institutions, minority business enterprises, minority-owned businesses, woman-owned businesses, veteran-owned businesses, or entities located in an underserved community that meet the eligibility requirements described in the funding opportunity are encouraged to apply as the prime applicant or participate on an application as a proposed partner to the prime applicant.

WPTO estimates making up to 14 awards under the Marine Energy Systems Innovation at Sea funding opportunity, ranging between $300,000 and $2,125,000.

Note that a concept paper is due November 4, 2022.

The Community Clean Energy Coalition Prize is a $1.5M multi-phase competition. Awards will be given for new and existing coalitions dedicated to addressing community-identified energy challenges. This will invest directly in community-based organizations to achieve community solutions for clean energy challenges, EERE’s mission, and the DOE’s Justice40 priorities.

Phase I applications are due December 7.