The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) Build America Bureau (Bureau) today released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Rural and Tribal Assistance Pilot Program, created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The NOFO offers $27 million in technical assistance grants to rural and tribal communities for the planning and design phase development of transportation projects. There is no local funding match required to participate in this program. The Bureau designated up to $10 million for Tribal applicants.

A growing supply gap in heat pump and HVAC technicians is increasing the risk of a bottleneck in statewide building retrofit and decarbonization efforts that are critical to meeting the Commonwealth’s climate goals.

The Catalyst Program provides grants of up to $75,000 to researchers and early-stage companies looking to demonstrate initial prototypes of their climate technologies. Catalyst is jointly administered by MassCEC and MassVentures with a goal of stimulating the commercialization of climate technologies developed in the Commonwealth. Specifically, the program is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of transforming new ideas from the research stage to commercially viable technologies to increase industry and investor interest. All awardees gain access to a vast network of partners, expert local market and policy insights, and mentoring from MassCEC and MassVentures, while all finalists receive complimentary pitch coaching and business mentoring.

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.

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 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.

This contracting action is the second step in a two-step solicitation process to administer the State of New York’s $24 million award from the DOE’s Grid Deployment Office. New York was one of nine states and five tribal nations that were awarded a combined total of $125 million last November as the seventh cohort of Preventing Outages and Enhancing the Resilience of the Electric Grid Grant.

NYSERDA is using the award as Step 2 in the solicitation process to provide funding for implementation projects to eligible applicants. Municipal utility (MUNI), rural electric cooperative (COOP) or any small grid operator within the State of New York that sells less than 4,000,000 MWh electricity annually will be eligible to apply for funding to support the implementation of eligible projects.   Eligible entities are allowed to apply for PON 5896 without having applied for or received funds from Technical Assistance Technical Assistance Funding to Develop Grid Modernization Projects (PON 5737). Previous application and/or award of technical assistance funding from PON 5737 does not guarantee award for federal implementation funds and vice- versa.

The Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) Ready program provides a vital mechanism for the support of innovative energy R&D that complements ARPA-E’s primary focus on early-stage transformational energy technologies that require proof of concept.

This resource bank is intended to connect frontline community groups, nonprofits, policymakers, and businesses to materials relevant to accessing federal infrastructure funding. It comprises toolkits, networks, technical assistance, and links to relevant funding resources that center community. There is currently a vast amount of information available to meet this once-in-a-generation moment. Partners in the Communities First Infrastructure Alliance compiled this evolving list of go-to resources to help communities sift through some of that information.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announces the opportunity to apply for a total of $5,000,000 from Fiscal Years (FY) 2022, 2023, and 2024 in Public Transportation Innovation Program (49 U.S.C. § 5312) funds for a competitive cooperative agreement to develop and manage a new FTA Technology Transfer (T2) Program.

The InnovateMass program provides up to $350,000 in grant funding and technical support to applicant teams deploying new clean energy technologies or innovative combinations of existing technologies with a strong potential for commercialization. Successful applicants will propose projects that address important energy challenges within our four focus areas, help to grow the state’s clean energy economy, and contribute to Massachusetts’ continued clean energy leadership.

Blue-Sky Training Program for Grid Scale Energy Storage Systems aims to enhance community safety for utilities with Energy Storage Systems. As storage technologies continue to be deployed, it is critical that communities are storage ready and that necessary stakeholders are brought to the table to ensure a new or existing Energy Storage Systems will operate safely and reliably.