This Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) funding opportunity provides support for rural and remote communities to build clean energy projects that benefit their communities. Applicants must propose projects that support at least one of these eligible activities:

• Improving overall cost-effectiveness of energy generation, transmission, or distribution systems;
• Siting or upgrading transmission and distribution lines;
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy generation in rural or remote areas;
• Providing or modernizing electric generation facilities;
• Developing microgrids; and
• Increasing energy efficiency.

Pre-development grants of up to $300,000 will be awarded over the course of multiple application rounds. The first round of Climate United NEXT grants will support clean energy projects in Native communities and will be open to non-profit organizations, state and local government entities, Indian tribes, and Institutions of Higher Education (IHE).  In 2025, Climate United will have additional rounds focused on other underserved market segments.

The purpose of the LCTM Program is to reimburse the incrementally higher costs of using or provide an incentive amount to eligible recipients for the use, in projects, of construction materials and products that have substantially lower levels of embodied GHG emissions, as described by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), associated with all relevant stages of production, use, and disposal as compared to estimated industry averages of similar materials or products, hereafter referred to as low carbon transportation materials.

The program will also serve to help eligible transportation agencies update or develop specification language and conduct identification activities needed to demonstrate materials are appropriate for use on Federal-aid construction projects.

Funds made available for the LCTM Program will be awarded for the use of substantially lower carbon materials and products on construction projects funded under title 23 U.S.C. and necessary work to identify appropriateness for use of these materials on eligible projects.

The primary objectives of this funding opportunity announcement are to:

• Help small operators significantly reduce methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations, using commercially available technology solutions for methane emissions monitoring, measurement, quantification, and mitigation.
• Accelerate the repair of methane leaks from low-producing wells and the deployment of early-commercial technology solutions to reduce methane emissions from new and existing equipment such as natural gas compressors, gas-fueled engines, associated gas flares, liquids unloading operations, handling of produced water, and other equipment leakage.
• Improve communities’ access to empirical data and participation in monitoring through multiple installations of monitoring and measurement technologies while establishing collaborative relationships between equipment providers and communities.
• Enhance the detection and measurement of methane emissions from oil and gas operations at regional scale, while ensuring nationwide data consistency, through the creation of collaborative partnerships.

The Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C) was established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and renewed and expanded under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). The 48C credit is a tax credit for investments in advanced energy projects, as defined in 26 USC § 48C(c)(1). The IRA provided $10 billion in funding for the expanded 48C(e) Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit Allocation Program (48C(e) program). To receive the full value of a 48C credit, projects must meet prevailing wage and registered apprenticeship standards. DOE 48C Portal opens for concept paper submission on May 22, 2024. Concept paper submission, due on June 21, is the first required step in the application process.

This FOA  supports high-impact technology R&D to accelerate the bioeconomy. BETO is focusing on applied RD&D to improve the performance and reduce the cost of biofuel production technologies and scale-up production systems in partnership with industry. By reducing cost and technical risk, BETO can help pave the way for industry to deploy commercial-scale integrated biorefineries and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors, such as the aviation industry. Additionally, this FOA will reduce risks in processing or co-processing biointermediates in legacy refinery infrastructure.

• Topic Area 1: Pre-pilot Scale-Up of Integrated Biorefinery Technologies
• Topic Area 2: Biointermediate Processing Toolbox

Phase 1 of the CPRG program provides flexible support to states, local governments, tribes, and territories regardless of where they are in their climate planning and implementation process. Planning grant recipients are using the funding to design climate action plans that incorporate a variety of measures to reduce GHG emissions from across their economies in six key sectors (electricity generation, industry, transportation, buildings, agriculture/natural and working lands, and waste management).

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) provides up to $1 billion for States and units of local government with the authority to adopt building energy codes to adopt and implement the latest building energy codes, zero energy building codes, or equivalent codes or standards.

This opportunity assists eligible entities in further decarbonizing their buildings through the adoption of the latest national model building energy codes, zero energy codes, other codes that deliver equivalent or greater energy savings, including innovative approaches to decarbonize existing buildings through certain measurable and enforceable requirements. The IRA is unprecedented in its opportunity to support sustainable change at the State and local level with respect to advancing the energy efficiency of new, renovated, and existing buildings. DOE is particularly interested in supporting States and local governments in implementing local capacity building, multi-year investments in workforce and education, and long-term improvements in building energy codes through multi-cycle adoption and building performance standards (BPS).

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) has up to $225 million to grant to Tribal governments and Alaska Native entities for Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates. This program will provide up to $14,000 per eligible household for energy efficiency and electrification home upgrades.

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.

NOAA is issuing this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for qualified organizations to form and support partnerships that will work collaboratively to support regional economies and their associated workforces by developing training programs that build in-demand skills, offering wraparound services that allow workers to successfully enroll in and complete training, and helping workers enter or advance into good jobs that enhance climate resilience. Wraparound services allow people to overcome barriers to participate in the program, especially individuals in underserved groups. Examples of wraparound services include transportation, childcare, elder care, and housing services. NOAA heavily prioritizes efforts to reach individuals from historically underserved communities, and to benefit disadvantaged communities.