The Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Prize recognizes the nation’s most innovative incubators. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), the EPIC Prize awards cash prizes to regional incubator teams that submit the most creative and impactful plans, then implement those plans to develop strong clusters, connections, and support for energy startups and entrepreneurs. OTT has also partnered with three other program offices to date to provide Bonus Prizes. In addition to the $4 million in Core Incubator Prize funding, $50,000 Bonus Prizes will be available for incubators supporting water power and/or the blue economy, buildings technologies, and solar technologies.

This FOA supports the development of workforce programs and partnerships that will facilitate the continued deployment of solar energy technologies, while supporting an inclusive workforce with opportunities for career advancement, including through union membership. As part of the whole-of-government approach to advance equity and encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining, this FOA and any related activities will seek to encourage meaningful engagement and participation of labor unions and underserved communities and underrepresented groups, including consultation with Tribal Nations.

Areas of interest include:

• Apprenticeship readiness (pre-apprenticeship) or apprenticeship partnerships
• Community-led training partnerships
• Clean energy sector partnerships

Note that a Letter of Intent and Concept Paper are due before the final application deadline.

Looking to scale your innovation? Need ideas, resources and advice to take your start-up or scale-up to the next level? From agriculture to transport, recycling, chemicals, clean energy and the latest in AI, you can search the Innovation Challenge Hub for and find opportunities to work with corporates, investors, accelerators and programs dedicated to helping create a cleaner, cooler future.

The Community Geothermal Heating and Cooling Design and Deployment FOA will award $300,000–$13 million for projects that help communities design and deploy geothermal district heating and cooling systems, create related workforce training, and identify and address environmental justice concerns.

The Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) anticipates making approximately 1–10 awards under the initial phase, with individual awards varying between $300,000 and $750,000. In the second phase, following a downselect, GTO anticipates making 1–4 awards, with individual awards between $2.5 million and $10 million. GTO seeks diverse teams to form U.S. community coalitions.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) seek to invest in innovative research and development (R&D) as well as research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects that enable continued cost reductions, while developing next-generation solar technologies and boosting American solar manufacturing, especially in cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaics.

The research and development (R&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 develop and demonstrate new technologies enabling fast deployment of large amounts of solar generation into the grid.

UMLRI’s Northstar Campus Pitch Day returns for its 3d year to showcase some of the Boston startup ecosystem’s most exciting, innovative and cutting-edge technology. This year’s first of two Pitch Day events will be taking place August 11th, 2022 at the Northstar Campus.  The Northstar Campus goal is to remove barriers to engagement and accelerate defense innovation, serving as the center of gravity for the New England startup and venture communities, academia, and local and federal partners, to support the Department of Defense.

Competitors are now invited to submit physical prototype systems, emphasizing technological innovation and challenging entrants to think outside the standard forms, materials, and price points of commercially available products. Up to six competitors earning the most points for innovation exceeding minimum performance requirements will share an award of $2 million.

The Prototype Phase has two separate tracks: a luminaire track and a connected systems track. Competitors may submit an entry for either track or separate entries for both tracks. DOE will evaluate each track’s submissions independently. Participation in the prior Concept Phase is not required to be eligible for subsequent phases of the L-Prize.

Prototype submissions will be evaluated in person by the Expert Reviewer Panel for energy efficiency, lighting performance, functionality, and sustainability features. Competitors can earn points for exceeding the minimum technical requirements and for additional technical innovations and approaches to support diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), in partnership with the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), Momentum, and Los Angeles Cleantech Institute (LACI), proposes to develop, implement and administer the California Test Bed Initiative (CalTestBed). This $11M program will provide vouchers of between $10,000 and $300,000 to 60 of California’s clean energy entrepreneurs—for redemption at any of nearly 30 initial DER testing and verification facilities currently operating within the University of California system, representing the unprecedented commitment of 9 University of California campuses and LBNL. By streamlining access to these facilities, CalTestBed will assist entrepreneurs in refining their technology prototypes to better meet customer specifications while accelerating some of California’s most promising clean energy technologies on the pathway to successful commercialization.

The Urban, Indoor, and Emerging Agriculture (UIE) program supports research, education, and extension work by awarding grants to solve key problems of local, regional, and national importance that facilitate development of urban, indoor, and emerging agricultural systems. The program includes food value chain stages: production, harvesting, transportation, aggregation, packaging, distribution, and markets.

The Solar District Cup challenges multidisciplinary student teams to design and model distributed energy systems for a campus or urban district. These systems integrate solar, storage, and other distributed energy capabilities across mixed-use districts, or groups of buildings served by a common electrical distribution feeder. The competition engages students in engineering, finance, urban planning, sustainability, and other disciplines or degree programs to reimagine how energy is generated, managed, and used in a district.

On June 23rd, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CEMII) for Industrial Decarbonization through Electrification of Process Heating Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). This FOA will provide up to $70 million in federal funding to develop and fund a new institute that will conduct research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) focused on developing and scaling electrified processes that reduce emissions, improve flexibility, and enhance energy efficiency of industrial process heating.

Full applications are due October 25, and concept papers are due August 9.

Geothermal energy is poised to be a key contributor in the shift to a sustainable energy future. The PIVOT 2022 SPE Datathon is going to challenge participants to solve a geothermal engineering problem using real field data from the Utah FORGE Project. Participants are going to use modern machine learning methods to create predictive models to aid future geothermal energy production. Participants are going to work on one of the largest geothermal datasets assembled including never before analyzed data. They will leverage their combined engineering and data skillsets to generate actionable insights to help solve the real-world design problem. First week of the competition will be for networking and team creation. The competition will start on June 27^th, 2022.

More details regarding prizes and data for the competition will be announced shortly.