Smart Futures Lab offers an invaluable opportunity for growth in the tech space through a free incubator and accelerator program. Open to new majority tech founders, professionals, and students, looking to develop and scale their smart city innovation solutions. The Incubator Program caters to tech startups in the early stages of development, whether they are ideating, designing, or testing their products. The Accelerator Program is for mature companies looking to scale, build government partnerships, refine their business model, and find funding investors.

Launch your electrifying journey into the future of innovation! Join the world’s largest multi-sector commercialization program for emerging deep technologies. Pitch your groundbreaking innovations and connect with top-tier corporate, investment, military and federal leaders for partnering, licensing and investment opportunities. Whether you’re a startup, university TTO, federal lab, or federal awardee, seize the moment. Submit your commercially viable innovation now and connect with the largest gathering of tech-scouts and funding offices worldwide.

The E-Team Program, part of the VentureWell Accelerator, supports student ventures as you embark down the path you’re likely to take as an innovator and entrepreneur. We help you advance your invention through a powerful mix of up to $25,000 in grant funding, entrepreneurship training, mentorship by dedicated staff, national recognition, and networking with peers and industry experts.

Participants travel to NREL’s main campus in Golden, Colorado, for four multiday sessions held June–September. The Energy Execs program provides an in-depth look at solar and wind power, bioenergy, hydrogen and transportation, energy-efficient building technologies, and energy systems integration. Just as energy technology has advanced over the years, the program has continually evolved to incorporate the latest innovations and breakthroughs. Participants will gain access to:

• Briefings by world-renowned researchers and engineers
• Tours of state-of-the-art research laboratories
• Visits to renewable energy installations.

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.

TRIBAL CLEAN ENERGY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT – 2025 Under this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the DOE Office of Indian Energy is soliciting applications from Indian Tribes, which include Alaska Native Regional Corporations and Village Corporations, Intertribal Organizations, and Tribal Energy Development Organizations to: (1) Conduct clean energy planning (Topic Area 1); (2) Comprehensively assess the feasibility and viability of deploying clean energy technology (Topic Area 2); or, (3) Conduct clean energy design and development activities (Topic Area 3). Unless DOE approves a requested cost share reduction from 10% to 0%, all Applicants are required to provide non-federal cost share of at least 10% of the total allowable costs of the project (i.e., the sum of the federal share and the non-federal Recipient cost share of allowable costs equals the total allowable cost of the project). If requested by the Applicant as part of its application, a cost share reduction from 10% to 0% may be considered based on financial need, specifically (1) poverty rate, or (2) median household income of the tribal community as a percentage of statewide median household income. (see Section III.B.2. of the FOA and ‘Application Forms and Templates’ for this FOA on IE-Exchange). DOE expects to make approximately $25 million of federal funding available for new awards under this FOA. The actual level of funding, if any, depends on Congressional appropriations. DOE anticipates making approximately 20 to 40 awards under this FOA. DOE may issue awards in one, multiple, or none of the Topic Areas. See the FOA document in IE-Exchange for a full description.

The Secretary of the Interior (“Secretary”), through the Division of Energy and Mineral Development (DEMD), Office of Trust Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), is soliciting grant proposals from Federally recognized tribal entities to build Tribal capacity for energy resource regulation and management. The Tribal Energy Development Capacity (TEDC) grant program seeks to develop the Tribal management, organizational and technical capacity needed to maximize the economic impact of energy resource development on Federally recognized tribal land. TEDC grants equip Federally recognized tribal entities to regulate and manage their energy resources through development of organizational and business structures and legal and regulatory infrastructure. Examples of projects TEDC grants may fund include establishment of Tribal business charters under Federal, state, or Tribal law with a focus on energy resource development; adoption and/or implementation of a secured transactions code; feasibility studies on forming a Tribal utility authority; and development of Tribal energy regulations.

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) on behalf of the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO). This funding opportunity is coordinated with Innovation Fund Denmark to support U.S.-Danish consortia collaborating on shared research objectives. EERE funds will be used to support the U.S. entity work through this FOA. Innovation Fund Denmark funds will be used to support Danish entity work through Innovation Fund Denmark’s corresponding funding opportunity. This research funding opportunity
focuses on issues related to mooring technologies and methods. For the purpose of
this FOA, “mooring technologies” means any equipment to permanently secure a
floating full-scale 15 megawatt+ wind turbine structure in position within a deep
water (50m+) offshore wind energy array including mooring lines, anchors, and all
associated components. The goals of this FOA are to:

• Advance floating offshore wind energy mooring technologies and methods towards cost-effective commercialization and industry growth;
• Encourage bilateral collaboration to increase the impact of research in the United States and Denmark; and
• Support research at U.S. minority-serving colleges and universities^[1](MSI) and facilitate new relationships between MSIs, other researchers, and industry participants.

The Wind Turbine Technology Recycling NOFO is a $20M program intended to address various barriers to widespread adoption of recycling for two major materials found in wind energy systems, fiber reinforced composites and rare earth elements. The overall goals are as follows:

• Accelerate development of designs that are more easily recyclable and reusable
• Accelerate development of end-of-life processing technologies to cost effectively, sustainably, and efficiently recycle and recover materials from wind turbines, including manufacturing waste
• Address technological and supply chain challenges limiting recycling of fiber reinforced composites and rare earth element magnets in wind turbines

The SBIR/STTR Programs Office works collaboratively with 13 program offices throughout the DOE. Each DOE program office considers its high priority research needs and program mission, as well as the Department’s goals for the program in developing research topics.  The specific research topics selected for the SBIR and STTR programs are developed by DOE technical program managers. DOE offers more than sixty technical topics and 250 subtopics, spanning research areas that support the DOE mission in Energy Production, Energy Use, Fundamental Energy Sciences, Environmental Management, and Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation.

The IGF builds on decades of technical expertise and market analysis accumulated at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the nation’s only federal lab dedicated to renewable energy and energy efficiency research. We are strongly committed to our mission of connecting cutting-edge startups with motivated investors. Presenting companies are chosen from applicants vetted by a selection committee of more than 150 climate tech and cleantech investors and industry experts. This rigorous screening process provides beneficial feedback to startups that apply. The top 40 companies are invited to present.

Hailing from around the world, BE Fellows are focused on technologies that have the potential to reduce greenhouse gases, at scale, by at least 500 million tons per year. Technologies supported to date include high-impact areas such as hydrogen, electrofuels, steel, cement, food and agriculture, energy storage, nuclear fusion, carbon dioxide capture, storage and sequestration. The Breakthrough Energy Fellows program has three pathways, defined as follows:

• Innovator Fellows are world-leading scientists and engineers who enter the program with a critical climate technology to commercialize.
• Business Fellows are experienced professionals with tech commercialization skills who support the Innovator Fellows in accelerating their path to market.
• Explorers receive funding for earlier stage, higher technical risk endeavors. These projects are typically led by scientists at university labs or research entities.