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Energy Funding Opportunities

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    Two landmark federal laws will invest nearly $700 billion nationally into infrastructure, grid improvement, energy-related research, rebates and more. The Minnesota Department of Commerce Energy Division is dedicated to making the most of this historic opportunity to build a stronger, more resilient Minnesota.

    Federal funding will benefit Minnesotans many ways. Learn about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law - also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) - and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) here and about federal funding opportunities below.

    Latest news: recent & expected energy funding announcements

    How it works: The federal government often follows a structure for funding announcements: 1) Issuing a Request for Information (RFI); 2) Issuing a Notice of Intent (NOI); 3) Issuing a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) or Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). The agency offering the funding opportunity generally also holds webinars during the various stages to fully communicate details of the funding opportunity and assist in stakeholder planning.

    Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA)

    • Clean Energy Careers for All (CEC4A) [Information & Submission] Deadline: Dec 13, 2024; DOE's new program to fund initiatives aimed at developing a diverse clean energy workforce by targeting a wide variety of groups within science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The Clean Energy Careers for All (CEC4A) program will award nearly $3 million to non-profit educational organizations—including engineering, scientific, and technical societies—to support programs that promote awareness and interest in clean energy careers.
    • Generation III+ Small Modular Reactor Pathway to Deployment [DE-FOA-0003485] Deadline: Jan 17, 202; DOE offers this solicitation to spur 'first mover' teams to deploy the first Gen III+ SMRs in the United States and to provide funding for 'fast follower' deployment support, which will address key gaps that have hindered the domestic nuclear industry.
    • Industrial Training & Assessment Centers (ITAC) Implementation Grants [Information] Deadline: applications accepted on a rolling basis and reviewed quarterly. DOE re-opened applications for small and medium-sized manufacturing firms to receive grants of up to $300,000 per unique assessment recommendation, at a 50% cost share, made in Industrial Training & Assessment Centers (ITAC) assessments and/or DOE Combined Heat and Power Technical Assistance Partnership (CHP TAP) assessments. Eligible applicants include small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms, water treatment facilities, and Controlled Environment Agriculture facilities.
    • Transmission Acceleration Grants (TAG) Program [Information] Deadline: Jan 21, 2025; The DOE Grid Deployment Office’s Transmission Acceleration Grants (TAG) will support State and Tribal efforts to accelerate and improve transmission siting and permitting and strengthen transmission planning for critical transmission lines (100 kV or greater) in any area of the country. Eligible participants are State or Tribal entities, or entities working with them such as regional transmission planning organizations, regional-state committees, or not-for-profit organizations. The TAG Program has $10 million available for this funding opportunity.

    Notice of Intent (NOI)

    • Funding to Facilitate Discovery and Development of Geothermal Resources Through Field Data Collection [Information] DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office expects to release funding in early 2025 to facilitate discovery and development of new U.S. geothermal resources through field data collection, including geophysics and exploratory drilling.
    • HARMONY: Human-Centric Analytics for Resilient & Modernized Power sYstems [DE-FOA-0003445] Prior to the end of 2024, DOE intends to issue a $5 million FOA to enhance grid reliability, resilience and accelerate pathways towards grid modernization goals.
    • Solar Module and Solar Hardware (SMASH) Incubator [DE-FOA-0003460] DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy intends to issue a $20 million NOFO entitled 'Fiscal Year 2025 Solar Module and Solar Hardware (SMASH) Incubator' to address the lack of sufficient private investment that is available to successfully commercialize research, development and demonstration activities to bring innovative solar photovoltaic technology to market.
    • Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs – Recurring Program [DE-FOA-0003429] The DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations intends to issue a NOFO for up to $1.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. The goal of this NOFO, along with potential subsequent re-openings and related solicitations, is to support the commercialization of direct air capture (DAC) solutions and the development of four regional DAC hubs.
    • Accelerating CO2 Conversion Technology Development and Deployment – Biological, Catalytic, and Mineralization Pathways [DE-FOA-0003496] The DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) intends to issue a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) on behalf of the DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. It is anticipated that the NOFO will be issued in 2025. If issued, this funding opportunity will support pilot-scale projects that advance carbon conversion technologies with a high technology readiness level that can achieve significant carbon mitigation via biological, catalytic or mineralization pathways. DOE also seeks to advance and support testing of product performance and characterization needed for market or consumer adoption. This may include lifecycle analysis development for novel carbon conversion technologies and lifecycle analysis development for pilot or demonstration facilities using those technologies.

    Request for Proposals (RFP)

    • Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas - IIJA [DE-FOA-0003428] DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations intends to issue a Notice of Funding Opportunity entitled “Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas FY24.” Topic Areas include: Open Category, Dual Use and Co-location, Smaller-scale Community Centered Projects, Isolated Microgrids and Unelectrified Buildings and the NOFO is anticipated to be released in September 2024.
    Request for Information (RFI)
    • Geologic Hydrogen Resource Exploration [DE-FOA-0003494] Response Deadline: December 2, 2024 by 3:00 PM CT; The DOE issued a Request for Information to solicit input for a potential program to evaluate novel approaches to 1) explore for naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen resources or geologic targets for hydrogen stimulation, and 2) develop methodologies to determine the recoverable reserves of hydrogen from natural accumulation or available through stimulation.
    • Opportunities for Additional Support for Commercial Direct Air Capture (DAC) Demonstration Facilities [DE-FOA-0003478] Deadline: Dec 17, 2024; The DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations issued a Request for Information (RFI). Public input is requested regarding additional approaches that current and future DOE programs could implement to help direct air capture developers address challenges in raising project investment capital and achieving sustained facility operations. The RFI seeks to understand how federal funding may complement existing DOE financial assistance mechanisms - offering development, construction and partial operations funding for first-of-a-kind commercial demonstrations - and supplement other government incentives (e.g., 45Q tax credit) in support of direct air capture technology commercialization and spurring the development of the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs.
    • Technology and Market Potential of Photovoltaic-Thermal (PVT) Systems in the United States [DE-FOA-0003465] Deadline: Dec 31, 2024; DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office seeks to better understand photovoltaic-thermal technologies (PVT), including but not limited to business, state-of-the-art, regulatory statutes and consumer opinion. SETO aims to summarize the information gathered from this RFI and will use the stakeholder feedback obtained to inform future program development. This RFI aims to solicit feedback from industry, academia, research laboratories, state and local government agencies and others.
    • US Department of Treasury’s Clean Energy Storytelling Program [Information] The Department of Treasury has created the Clean Energy Storytelling Program to invite individuals, workers, businesses, tax-exempt organizations and other eligible taxpayers to voluntarily share their stories about how the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) clean energy tax incentives are lowering energy costs for families, bringing back and strengthening manufacturing and creating good-paying jobs across the country.

    Find out more!

    The Commerce Department issues a bi-monthly e-newsletter on state and federal funding announcements and programs, as well as other items of interest. You can reference the most recently issued e-newsletters, in their entirety, below, to keep up to date with information on New State funded energy programs. Information on other federal funding (tax credits, loans, prizes or competitions, student scholarships or fellowships, etc.) Various types of grant-seeking support (webinars, meetings and conferences, technical assistance opportunities, mapping tools, reports and other publications, etc.). To receive this e-newsletter directly, sign up by clicking the “”sign up for email updates” button at the top right of this page.

    Resources

    Get ready to apply for federal funding opportunities

    As of April 4, 2022, entities doing business with the federal government (including grant applicants responding to a federal funding opportunities) are required to be registered in the System for Award Management found at SAM.gov and to have a Unique Entity Identification (UEI). UEI's are created by registering in SAM.gov. Registration in SAM.Gov is free.

    Entities that were registered in SAM.gov, with either active or in-active registrations, prior to April 4, 2022 have had a UEI assigned to their file. This transition to using a UEI rather than a DUNS number allows the federal government to streamline the entity identification and validation process, making it easier and less burdensome for entities to do business with the federal government.

    For additional information, read the Quick Start Guide for registering an entity in SAM.gov. Note: display issues have been noted when trying to access the documents linked above via the Chrome browser. If the guidance articles do not show by clicking on them above, copy the link address and paste it into a different browser such as Firefox.

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