The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the Fiscal Year 2025 Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) Program Wide funding program. This funding opportunity will award up to $88 million for projects that will seek innovative transportation solutions for on- and off-road vehicles.

DOE is committed to pushing the frontiers of science and engineering, catalyzing domestic jobs through research, development, demonstration, and deployment, and ensuring affordable and low-emission energy is available to all communities in America. Topic areas under this funding opportunity will advance affordable and reliable energy innovation in mobility and improve U.S. competitiveness.

Following a successful Round 1 and Round 2 of this prize series, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Electricity is excited to announce the $2.5 million Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 3: Resilient Grid Innovation. Round 3 of this competition aims to incentivize technology development partnerships with interdisciplinary teams of utility and energy sector partners with software developers and data experts to facilitate the transformation of digital systems, data analytics, and grid resource integration for the electric sector.

This NOFO is being issued by DOE’s EERE SETO to invest in R&D, technical assistance, and stakeholder engagement activities that improve the compatibility of large-scale solar (LSS) facilities with wildlife and facilitate the dual use of land for agricultural and solar energy production (agrivoltaics). Projects selected in this NOFO will a) test strategies that mitigate adverse impacts and/or maximize benefits to wildlife and ecosystems at LSS facilities, b) provide technical assistance and engagement opportunities that enable stakeholders to improve the compatibility of LSS facilities with wildlife, or c) provide technical assistance and stakeholder engagement opportunities related to agrivoltaics.

This NOFO will support high-impact, applied R&D focused on relieving ‘pinch points’ in algal system cultivation and preprocessing, with the goal of improving process economics for biofuels and/or bioproducts. The target audience for this NOFO is algae stakeholders with an interest in commercialization, and the eligible applicants include institutions of higher education, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, state and local governmental entities, and Indian Tribes.

Circular supply chains improve security and reduce environmental impacts, maximizing the lifetime of materials and products in the economy to support a robust and competitive manufacturing sector while providing economy-wide environmental benefits. Research and development (R&D) of new technologies to increase reuse, repair, recycling, remanufacturing, and repurposing of products and
materials will be essential to realize these economic and environmental benefits. To maximize effectiveness, R&D must be informed by analysis of non-technical factors, including market forces, business models, and the policy landscape. Such analysis can provide a systems-level view–identifying promising technologies and deployment pathways as well as what roadblocks remain–especially when it leverages input from a wide set of connected stakeholders. Those stakeholders can also amplify the impact of DOE investments in technologies that advance circular supply chains. This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) seeks to assemble a team that will conduct analysis, connect broad groups of stakeholders within multiple application spaces, and socialize EERE-developed innovations across a variety of industries to advance those innovations. The Accelerator’s role will include advancing the entire circularity field’s understanding of emerging technologies, thereby enabling the identification of potential roadblocks to deployment and opportunities to reduce the risks of technology commercialization.

National Grid is pursuing the potential procurement of resources in its Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation d/b/a National Grid (the “Company”) service territory both system-wide and in specific areas where there is an electric system need to provide load relief when events are called by the Company. This competitive procurement describes the Term-Dynamic Load Management (“Term-DLM”) Program and AutoDynamic Load Management (“Auto-DLM”) Program that the Company will be offering to supplement its portfolio of existing demand response programs. In accordance with the Procurement Order, the Term-DLM Program will be offered system-wide in the Company’s electric service territory. Term-DLM resources will offer peak-shaving benefits to the Company’s system and will be
called on upon no less than 21 hours’ advance notice.

Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation d/b/a National Grid (National Grid or the Company)is an electric and gas investorowned utility committed to providing safe, reliable, and affordable energy to all customers throughout its service territory
in Upstate New York. As a part of providing this service, National Grid is pursuing the potential implementation of NonWires Alternatives (NWA) solutions in its service territory. This request for proposal (RFP) is open to all NWA approaches that have the potential to provide NWA solutions in the area(s) identified in the problem description. National Grid has several long-term goals in consideration (in alignment
with state, federal, and Company ambitions) that impact the viability of any given proposal.

Participants in the Community Microgrid Assistance Partnership (C-MAP) will receive technical support and/or funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) to design or deploy a microgrid that aligns with community-defined priorities or to improve performance of an existing microgrid technology. Microgrids that generate power from renewable energy reduce the dependency on imported fuels, contributing to community self-sufficiency and resilience.

Through the three phases of the prize, teams have the chance to win part of the $8.42 million prize pool to fund their ongoing activities that address local challenges in clean energy, energy efficiency, manufacturing, materials, and transportation. Successful competitors will demonstrate a strong track record of building trust and strengthening relationships and partnerships within their communities. The Community Energy Innovation Prize is made up of three tracks, each with distinct focus areas, over three phases:

• Clean Energy Ecosystem Track.
• Manufacturing Ecosystem Track.
• Vehicles Ecosystem Track.

The Energy Innovator Fellowship (EIF) program funds recent graduates and energy professionals to support critical energy organizations in advancing solutions that will help modernize the power system, improve energy infrastructure for transportation and industry, and make the U.S. power system more reliable, affordable, and resilient. The program recruits candidates from varied educational and professional backgrounds to spend up to two years at eligible Host Institutions. Applications for prospective host institutions are currently open.

The overall intent of this initiative is to accelerate the responsible deployment of geothermal energy in multiple underdeveloped regions of the U.S. by addressing specific barriers to deployment in each area. These barriers include a lack of adequate public data to guide and incentivize geothermal exploration activities, financial barriers that impede exploratory drilling and limited technical expertise in certain stakeholder organizations. Participants are expected to collaborate in identifying data gaps as well as prioritizing, planning, and executing geothermal data collection and dissemination activities with the aim of incentivizing and stimulating follow-up geothermal exploration and development activities.  The focus should be on pre-competitive data, i.e., datasets that would benefit multiple stakeholders if not the entire geothermal industry.  The goal is to make all newly collected data publicly available within a reasonable timeframe.  A limited embargo period may be allowed, where necessary, to incentivize industry participation.

The Joint Assessment of Resilience in Vulnerable Infrastructure Systems (JARVIS) Opportunity will provide funding to utilities to deploy advanced technologies and incorporate modeling to identify and mitigate grid vulnerabilities, enabling greater integration across diverse energy portfolios. Eligible applicants are utilities and partner technical assistance providers (which includes companies/entities, research institutions, consulting firms, technology companies, for-profit and non-profit organizations). JARVIS will provide awards of approximately $1M each and is making $35 million currently available.