The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) supports DOE’s mission by funding early-stage research to help develop cost-effective technology solutions and advance technology towards commercialization through a variety of funding activities.

Marine energy technologies provide renewable sources of electricity that support EERE goals of increasing energy affordability, domestic economic prosperity, and energy security while enhancing the reliability and resiliency of the U.S. power grid. This FOA addresses priorities in the following areas: marine energy foundational Research and Development (R&D) at non-federal research institutions, collaborative R&D efforts among research organizations and the marine energy industry, and expansion of marine energy testing capabilities.

Pax Momentum is accepting applications for its Fall 2020 Cohort. Twice a year, Pax invites 10 companies to participate, reserving three spots for CleanTech, investing $50,000 in each company and providing opportunities to help with growth.

PAX Momentum Accelerator is meant to supplement your entrepreneurial activities. The program and trainings are designed to complement product development and business launch, not take you away from spending time on your company. For each cohort, they look for 8-10 early-stage startups (reserving 3 out of the ten spots for CleanTech companies). They have successfully invested in 20-year-old founders and 60-year-old founders – the goal is simply to find and cultivate great talent.

PAX Momentum believes in the alignment of environmental and economic goals. Three out of the ten spots in their program are reserved for CleanTech companies focusing on solar, wind, biofuel, recycling, water purification, green transportation, gray water, and more.

The Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), within the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), supports early-stage research and development (R&D) to strengthen the body of knowledge upon which industry can accelerate the development and deployment of innovative geothermal energy technologies.

GTO works to develop technologies to drive down the costs and risks of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is a domestic energy resource from the heat of the earth, which represents a reliable, secure, clean, and nearly inexhaustible energy source.

This multi-topic funding opportunity aims to drive down costs and risks associated with the discovery of hidden geothermal systems in the Basin & Range region of the U.S., and to enhance energy system resilience through the utilization of Reservoir Thermal Energy Storage (RTES), Deep Direct-Use (DDU) and other geothermal direct use applications on university campuses, military installations, hospital complexes, and other large energy end-uses across the U.S.

The topic areas will be:

Topic Area 1 – Exploration RD&D: Hidden Geothermal Systems in the Basin and Range

Topic Area 2 – Advanced Energy Storage Initiative (AESI): Bi-directional Energy Storage Using Low-Temperature Geothermal Applications

The DOE SC program in Fusion Energy Sciences is accepting grant applications for fundamental theoretical and computational research for public benefit, relevant to magnetic confinement configurations. The specific areas of interest of this FOA are:

1. Macroscopic Stability

2. Confinement and Transport

3. Boundary Physics

4. Plasma Heating & Non-inductive Current Drive, and

5. Energetic Particles

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) develops technologies that convert domestic biomass and other waste resources into fuels, products, and power to enable affordable energy, economic growth, and innovation in renewable energy and chemicals production – the bioeconomy. This FOA will support high-impact technology research and development (R&D) to enable growth and innovation to accelerate the bioeconomy by requesting applications across the entire scope of BETO’s mission space. It will provide funding to address BETO’s highest priority R&D areas. It includes Topic Areas from five BETO programs: Feedstock Supply and Logistics; Advanced Algal Systems; Conversion Technologies; Advanced Development and Optimization; and Strategic Analysis and Crosscutting Sustainability. Each Topic Area supports BETO’s objectives to reduce the minimum selling price of drop-in biofuels, lower the cost of biopower, and enable high-value products from biomass or waste resources.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is issuing, on behalf of the Vehicle Technologies Office, the following funding opportunity: This announcement seeks research projects to address priorities in the following areas: advanced batteries and electrification in support of the recently-announced DOE Energy Storage Grand Challenge; advanced engine and fuel technologies, including technologies for off-road applications and alternative fueled engines; lightweight materials; new mobility technologies (energy efficient mobility systems); and alternative fuels technology demonstrations.

The DOE SC program in Basic Energy Sciences (BES) solicits new applications for multi-investigator cross-disciplinary fundamental research to address emerging new directions as well as long-standing challenges in liquid solar fuels generation via artificial photosynthesis approaches. Artificial photosynthesis is typically viewed as the generation of fuels using only sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water as inputs. However, for the purpose of this FOA the concept of artificial photosynthesis approaches will be expanded to include other abundant feedstocks beyond carbon dioxide, such as nitrogen. Regardless of feedstock, the focus must remain on fundamental scientific concepts for solar-driven liquid fuel production.

Projects under this FOA will fall under two different types. The first type will be initial engineering studies of carbon capture systems for industrial carbon sources. The second type will test advanced carbon capture materials, processes, or a combination of advanced materials and processes. The selected projects will be required to use actual flue gas at engineering scale either from coal or natural gas fired power systems.

The SHARKS^[1] Program seeks to develop new designs for economically attractive Hydrokinetic Turbines (HKT) for tidal and riverine currents. Tidal and riverine energy resources are renewable, have the advantage of being highly reliable and predictable, and are often co-located with demand centers, while HKT devices can be designed with low visual profiles and minimal environmental impact. These energy-producing devices are also uniquely suited for micro-grid applications, supplying energy to remote communities and other “blue economy” or utility-scale applications. This Program is aimed at applying Control Co-Design (CCD), Co-Design (CD) and Designing-for-OpEx (DFO) methodologies to HKT design.

This Program seeks to fund the development of new HKT designs that include, but are not limited to, hydrodynamics, mechanical structures, materials, hydro-structural interactions, electrical energy conversion systems, control systems, numerical simulations and experimental validations. Simultaneous consideration of the full problem can result in operational designs that are optimal, and suitable for deployment in a wide variety of tidal and riverine energy environments. The SHARKS Program seeks new HKT designs that are optimized within a Metric Space that quantifies the swept rotor area per unit of equivalent mass and the water-to-electron power generation efficiency, while navigating across LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) contours of constant value or isolines.

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). SETO supports solar energy research and development (R&D) in three technology areas—photovoltaics (PV), concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP), and systems integration—with the goal of improving the affordability, reliability, and performance of solar technologies on the grid. This section describes the overall goals of the Solar Energy Technologies Office Fiscal Year 2020 (SETO 2020) funding program and the types of projects being solicited for funding support through this FOA.

The SETO 2020 funding program seeks to advance R&D of solar technologies that reduce the cost of solar, increase the competitiveness of American manufacturing and businesses, and improve the reliability of the grid. These projects will advance R&D in PV, CSP, and energy management technologies, while also working to improve cybersecurity, expand solar to new applications like agricultural solar, integrate solar and storage, and utilize artificial intelligence to address research challenges.

The Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) is within the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). EERE advances America’s leadership in science and technology through early-stage research and development in sustainable transportation, renewable power, and energy efficiency.

WETO enables growth and U.S. competitiveness in the domestic wind industry by supporting early-stage research on technologies that enhance energy affordability, reliability, and resilience and strengthen U.S. energy security, economic growth, and environmental quality. More information is available at www.energy.gov/eere/wind.

WETO works with DOE National Laboratories, industry, universities, and other federal agencies to conduct research and development activities through competitively selected, directly funded, and cost-shared projects. WETO’s efforts target land-based utility-scale, offshore, and distributed wind power to fully support a national clean energy economy.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is issuing, on behalf of the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO), Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0002236 entitled “Offshore Wind Atmospheric Science and Project Development.”

This FOA has Two Topic Areas

Topic Area 1: The overall goal of this Topic Area is to provide funding for a project that will improve wind resource modeling and predictions in offshore wind energy development areas. Using lessons-learned and information gained during the previous program work in complex-terrain wind resource modeling and prediction, this Topic Area will focus on improving wind resource model physics for foundational wind forecasts and other applications in offshore wind energy development areas.

Topic Area 2: The overall goal of this Topic Area is to provide funding for a project(s) that will enable demonstration of a novel technology and/or methodology that will advance the state-of-the-art of offshore wind energy in the United States. The proposed project must either implement an innovative technology at engineering/pilot or full-scale, and/or employ a novel methodology that has yet to be utilized commercially in the United States for offshore wind.

The EMPOWERED funding program is a collaborative effort across EERE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO), and Building Technologies Office (BTO), to provide professionals with educational materials and training resources in fields newly interacting with distributed energy resources (DER). In this program, DER includes distributed solar, like on homes and businesses, as well as efficient building technologies and sustainable transportation technologies, such as electric vehicles.

The goal of this program is to create resources that will help those on the front lines of DER adoption—like first responders, safety officials, and building managers and owners—keep up with these rapidly emerging and advancing technologies. These professionals are at the forefront of America’s energy transition and play a role in easing adoption, ensuring safety, and reducing installation costs. Because of this, the participating EERE offices see these professionals as key to enabling understanding and acceptance of new energy technologies.

SETO, BTO, and VTO seek applicants that will create and integrate education and training materials for professionals who have significant involvement and authority over implementing solar, building, or vehicle technologies on the distribution system but who do not work primarily with these technologies. Those technologies include but are not limited to DER—like PV systems, building efficiency technologies, energy storage systems, AFV, EV—and EV infrastructure.

There was an informational webinar held on April 16, 2020 at 1pm EST. The slides and script are available on the program page.