With over 450 designees nationwide, SolSmart helps local governments and regional organizations bring new business to their community, promote economic growth, and foster the creation of new jobs. As a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, our goal is to make it faster, easier, and more affordable to go solar.

To help communities achieve designation, SolSmart provides no-cost technical assistance from a team of national experts who work to evaluate programs and practices that impact solar markets, and identify high-prospect opportunities for improvement. A select number of communities also hosted SolSmart Advisors: fully-funded, experienced staff who work in communities for periods of up to six months.

The third edition of The Clean Fight will be focused on high-growth, scalable solutions creating abundant storage, enabling grid stability and a resilient, electrified future. This non-residential program will run from November 2022-April 2023. Info sessions will be held on May 24 and June 14.

The program is open to growth-stage start-ups with energy storage and battery innovations, including but not limited to: Transportation Battery Packs & Systems, Stationary Storage Systems, Battery Materials, Battery Cells and Packs, Materials Processing, Power Electronics & Controls, and Business Model & Financing Innovation. Companies must have intent to scale in New York. Program benefits include customer development, financing support, and scaling assistance without taking an equity stake- companies will be eligible to apply for up to $100k per company.

The Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling Grant Program will provide technical assistance and grants to small- and medium-sized manufacturers in former coal communities, with priority given to minority-owned manufacturers. The program provides $750 million for grants to expand or establish manufacturing or recycling facilities for the production or recycling of advanced energy technologies (including clean electricity, industrial decarbonization, clean transportation, and clean fuels), or to re-equip existing manufacturing facilities with equipment designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As a first step, DOE is providing tailored technical assistance to eligible manufacturers interested in seeking a grant under the program.

The Market Access Program is open to US-based and international startups with ambition in the Los Angeles area and focuses on developing market traction through a large-scale pilot, network connections, and investments. Applications to the Market Access Program require the submission of a Pilot Concept Proposal focusing on Clean Energy, Zero Emission Mobility, and Circular Economy. LACI will prioritize proposals with the potential for job creation in Los Angeles as well as those that provide solutions toward the goals of  LA’s Green New Deal, Zero Emission Roadmap 2028, and OurCounty LA.

LACI helps startups develop their technologies, secure funding and financing, access customers and markets, test and pilot their solutions, and unlock their full potential. Our startups go further, faster, together with LACI! Each of our programs will accept and fund 15-20 companies that best fit the program criteria, our mission, and the needs of the communities we serve.

Are you an ambitious cleantech startup, hungry to create solutions in clean energy, zero emissions transportation, or smart and sustainable cities that would benefit from hands-on support through market access, business services, and introductions to funders? Then our two-year, Incubation program is right for you! Or maybe you would benefit from for our one-year Innovators Program which offers a lighter-touch, high-impact concierge style ecosystem access opportunity.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is being issued by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to invest in innovative research and development (R&D) that accelerates the large-scale development and deployment of solar technology to support an equitable transition to a decarbonized electricity system by 2035 and decarbonized energy sector by 2050. By investing in research on the co-location of solar photovoltaics (PV) and agriculture (“agrivoltaics”), this FOA will advance the decarbonization of the energy system while providing new economic opportunities to farmers, rural communities, and the solar industry. The office supports solar energy research, development, demonstration, and technical assistance in five areas—PV, concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP), systems integration, manufacturing and competitiveness, and soft costs—to improve the affordability, reliability, and domestic benefit of solar technologies on the electric grid.

As the U.S. works to decarbonize the transportation sector and produce an increasing amount of “clean” (zero emission) electricity, electric vehicles (EVs) become logical alternatives to internal combustion engines (ICEs). However, to accelerate and/or broaden EV adoption, consumer-centric considerations need to be more thoroughly addressed, including cost, convenience, reliability, and safety. Although it is expected that EVs will continue to gain market share domestically, significantly more effort is required to address and remove key technology barriers to EV adoption among a greater percentage of the population. In response to these challenges, ARPA-E’s Electric Vehicles for American Low-Carbon Living (EVs4ALL) program will focus on advancing next-generation battery technologies that have the potential to significantly improve affordability, convenience, reliability, and safety of EVs compared to those available today. Final submission deadline TBD.

The DOE’s National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP) as a partner is a coalition of community solar stakeholders working to expand access to affordable community solar to every U.S. household.

This partnership will enable the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office and its national laboratory partners to:
– Create a platform for collaboration
– Develop practical resources
– Facilitate peer-to-peer learning
– Offer a variety of technical assistance opportunities to help you set goals, reach objectives, track progress, and report key metrics.

The Carbon to Value (C2V) Initiative—a unique partnership among the Urban Future Lab at New York University-Tandon, Greentown Labs, and Fraunhofer USA, and Founding Partner NYSERDA—combines a best-in-class partnership accelerator program with exclusive access to industry leaders shaping the carbontech marketplace of tomorrow. We’re seeking groundbreaking carbontech startups between TRL 4 and TRL 7 that are developing scalable solutions that capture carbon and/or incorporate captured carbon as a major input for valorization.

Technology areas include, but are not limited to:

• Carbontech solutions related to carbon capture (direct air capture or point source), carbon utilization/conversion into value-added products (e.g., fuels, chemicals, building materials, advanced materials, proteins/food), and/or carbon sequestration/removal technologies (e.g., mineralization and other sequestration methods)

• Carbontech solutions specifically for net-zero steel and/or low-carbon cement

• Carbontech solutions that utilize operational waste streams from heavy industries (e.g., mine tailings, slag, fly ash)

• Carbontech solutions specifically focused on blue carbon—carbon captured by the world’s ocean and coastal ecosystems (e.g., seaweed)

The MSI STEM Research & Development Consortium (MSRDC) is a solutions provider, research development partner and strategic asset to more than 60 minority-serving research institutions, industry and government partners. Our members use a combination of basic, applied, and/or advanced technology development research to pioneer groundbreaking solutions. With MSRDC’s unique funding vehicle, its members enjoy access to accelerate and elevate their research from concept to prototype and beyond. Current R&D funding opportunities include:

• Opaque Building Envelopes
• Thermal Energy Storage
• Next Generation Electric Machines (NGEM)
• Directed Energy Weapons – Ultra-Short Pulse Laser and Atmospheric Characterization
• High-Temperature Technologies for Naval Applications
• Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning for Photonics, Power & Energy, Atmospherics, and Quantum Science

This 12-week, in-person incubator program provides mentorship, access to prototyping services, training workshops, and partnership opportunities. The program will take place in Knoxville, TN and stipends are provided to defray travel and living costs. Up to six companies will be accepted for the next cohort. Apply by April 11.

Small grants and pro-bono professional support for smaller nonprofits is available from the ERM Foundation. This foundation invests in organizations and programs that focus on:

• Protecting and restoring biodiversity (including environmental education)
• Improving access to low carbon products and services
• Investing in women’s livelihoods in the ‘green’ economy
• Improving access to clean water and sanitation