The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) released a $9.5 million funding opportunity to increase hydropower’s flexibility, allowing it to better balance the variability of resources such as wind and solar on the power system. The opportunity will fund projects in three topic areas:

1. Up to $4 million for projects that demonstrate hydropower hybrid configurations, such as a hydropower facility paired with another type of generation or with an energy storage resource.
2. Up to $4 million for projects that advance technology innovations to improve the flexible capabilities of the U.S. hydropower fleet.
3. Up to $1.5 million for projects that quantify the flexible capabilities of hydropower and advance operational strategies to increase such flexibility to better serve an evolving electric grid.

The Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) announced a $38 million funding opportunity focused on cross-sector technologies for industrial decarbonization. Through this funding opportunity, IEDO seeks high-impact, applied research, development, and pilot demonstration (RD&D) projects that will help drive the transformational cross-sector technologies and innovations required to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the industrial sector. The projects selected for this funding opportunity will advance a clean and equitable energy economy, bolster the technological and economic competitiveness of domestic manufacturing, and boost the viability and competitiveness of U.S. industrial technology exports.

Topic Areas

• Topic 1 – Electrification of Industrial Heat
• Topic 2 – Efficient Energy Use in Industrial Systems
• Topic 3 – Decarbonizing Organic Wastewater and Wet Waste Treatment

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.

The AID Demonstration program provides funding as an incentive for eligible entities to accelerate the implementation and adoption of innovation in highway transportation. AID Demonstration funds can be used in any phase of a highway transportation project between project planning and project delivery, including planning, finance, operation, structures, materials, pavements, environment, and construction.

The Inspiring Generations of New Innovators to Impact Technologies in Energy (IGNIITE) program is designed to support a new cohort of early-career researchers to develop the most disruptive and unconventional ideas into transformative new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications. Areas of interest include grid, transportation, buildings and construction, electricity generation and storage, carbon capture, storage, and sequestration, industrial efficiency and decarbonization, amongst others. Additionally, awardees will engage with ARPA-E and fellow awardees through dedicated IGNIITE events, meetings, and mentorship activities.

The purpose of the Agriculture Risk Management Education Partnerships Competitive Grants Program is to educate agricultural producers about the full range of risk management activities. These activities include futures, options, agricultural trade options, crop insurance, cash forward contracting, debt reduction, production diversification, marketing plans and tactics, farm resources risk reduction, and other appropriate risk management strategies. The program places special emphasis on risk management strategies, education, and outreach specifically targeted at: (A) beginning farmers or ranchers; (B) legal immigrant farmers or ranchers that are attempting to become established producers in the United States; (C) socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers; (D) farmers or ranchers that (i) are preparing to retire; and (ii) are using transition strategies to help new farmers or ranchers get started; and (E) new or established farmers or ranchers that are converting production and marketing systems to pursue new markets. The Agriculture Risk Management Education (ARME) program brings the existing knowledge base to bear on risk management issues faced by agricultural producers and expands the program throughout the Nation on a regional and multi-regional basis.

Up to $40 million for Fiscal Years 2024, in Federal funding for eligible entities to deploy, operate, document, and showcase integrated, advanced roadway deployments featuring applications enabled by interoperable wireless connectivity (among vehicles, mobile devices, and smart infrastructure) that substantially and quantitatively improve system safety, enhance traveler mobility, improve efficiency of goods movement, mitigate environmental impacts, and address disparities in transportation equity.

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.

The Department of Commerce (DOC) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) invites small businesses to submit research proposals under this NOFO. Firms with the capability to conduct research and development (R&D) in any of the research topic areas listed in Section 9.0 of this announcement and to commercialize the results of that R&D are encouraged to participate. Topics include:

• Extreme Events and Cascading Hazards
• Coastal Resilience
• The Changing Ocean
• Water Availability, Quality, and Risk
• Effects of Space Weather
• Monitoring and Modeling for Climate Change Mitigation

The National Conservation Lands financially support studies aimed at increasing our
understanding of the resources present on BLM lands and the effectiveness of BLM’s resource management decisions. The program seeks to develop and maintain strong partnerships with State, local, university, tribal, and non-profit stakeholders in shared conservation stewardship by engaging partners in conducting management-focused research on the National Conservation Lands. Results from these studies on National Conservation Lands will inform management strategies utilized throughout BLM as well as other land management entities.

The Management Studies Support Program for National Conservation Lands will utilize partnerships with University, State, local, tribal, and non-profit entities to gather the best available data and synthesize information to support BLM’s land management decision processes and co-stewardship initiatives.

The objective of this NOFO is to invite States, Indian Tribes, irrigation districts, water districts, and other organizations with water or power delivery authority to leverage their money and resources by cost sharing with Reclamation on small-scale on-the-ground projects that seek to conserve, better manage, or otherwise make more efficient use of water supplies. Proposed projects that are supported by an existing water management and conservation plan, System Optimization Review, or other planning effort led by the applicant are prioritized. This prioritization will help ensure that projects funded under this NOFO are well thought out, have public support, and have been identified as the best way to address water management concerns. Reclamation has simplified the evaluation criteria and streamlined the application process for this category of WaterSMART Grants to ensure that the process works for smaller entities.

The 2024 BENEFIT FOA will invest up to $30M (subject to appropriations) across four topic areas: Topic 1: Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning and Water Heating Technologies with improved materials, components, equipment design, and engineering, lower cost manufacturing processes, and easier installation. Topic 2: Innovative, Replicable, and Low-Cost Roof and Attic Retrofits Technologies for affordable and scalable roof and attic retrofits that improve energy efficiency and address air and water infiltration. Topic 3: Building Resilience and Capacity Constraints Novel approaches to maintain essential loads during blackouts and add power capacity to buildings without the need for major infrastructure upgrades; localized thermal management systems and thermally resilient building envelopes to provide cooling and overheating protection against extreme heat events. Topic 4: Commercial Lighting Retrofit Advancements Low-cost, high-quality retrofit solutions for lagging sectors in energy-efficient lighting adoption (schools, certain commercial buildings).