C2C peer-learning cohorts bring together organizations with similar clean energy goals, opportunities, or challenges to:

• Learn from subject matter experts who will provide education, best practices, tools, templates, and other resources
• Exchange case studies, experiences, lessons learned, and insights with peers from across the United States
• Develop proposals, action plans, or strategies to overcome challenges and accelerate progress toward clean energy goals
• Gather insights that may increase access to upcoming programmatic or funding opportunities.

Cohorts last approximately six months and require an average time commitment of 5 hours/month from each participant.

Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) is a collaborative research effort administered by NREL and supported by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). C2C seeks to foster local clean energy transitions across multiple sectors (grid, buildings, and transportation).

Through C2C activities, the DOE will bring electric utilities, local governments, and community-based organizations together to build confidence in the feasibility of existing clean energy ambitions, develop plans and actions that are technically valid and data-driven, and drive implementation decisions to ensure more socially equitable clean energy-sector outcomes.

The State and Local Solution Center is a resource hub for states, local governments, and K-12 school districts. The Solution Center highlights various technical assistance opportunities to help your organization reach its energy efficiency and renewable energy goals.

Focus On Recruiting Emerging Climate and Adaptation Scientists and Transformers (FORECAST) seeks to facilitate the transition from status quo graduate career preparation to a student-centered model with a particular emphasis on building entrepreneurial and innovation capacity at emerging research institutions (ERIs). Transformers are scientists ready to tackle the challenges the nation and world are facing due to climate change. This opportunity will adopt the spirit of multiple directives for the research community; for example, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report on Earth System Scienceand the Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education report on Engaged Research. These directives call on the research enterprise to support the building of a robust scientific workforce ready to work with communities in addressing societal challenges. Through convergence research approaches to address societal challenges, the transdisciplinary researchers engaged in FORECAST will foster community resilience and the translation of research outcomes for societal benefits. A new generation of scientists trained in “engaged research” will be expected to have a national impact in communities that may be disproportionately affected by climate change impacts.

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) is in search of the best photos of solar energy with the American-Made Solar Photo Competition: Hit Me with Your Sun Shot. Solar energy plays an important role in powering the country’s future and achieving a zero-carbon energy supply. This photo competition brings attention to and documents solar energy’s importance in the clean energy transition.

The American-Made Upskill Prize for the Solar Manufacturing Workforce (Upskill Prize) is a $5 million prize designed to accelerate the expansion of the U.S. solar manufacturing workforce and equip workers with the skills necessary to revitalize the domestic solar manufacturing supply chain. This prize targets various facets of the U.S. solar photovoltaics (PV) module supply chain, addressing critical workforce needs.

The electric program makes insured loans and loan guarantees to nonprofit and cooperative associations, public bodies, and other utilities. Insured loans primarily finance the construction of electric distribution facilities in rural areas. The guaranteed loan program has been expanded and is now available to finance generation, transmission, and distribution facilities. The loans and loan guarantees finance the construction of electric distribution, transmission, and generation facilities, including system improvements and replacement required to furnish and improve electric service in rural areas, as well as demand side management, energy conservation programs, and on-grid and off-grid renewable energy systems.

Through this solicitation, DOE aims to support community and technical colleges; trade schools; union training programs (including labor-management training programs); apprenticeship readiness, apprenticeship, and internship programs; and their employer and workforce system partners through planning awards of up to $200,000, execution awards of up to $2,000,000, and cohort awards of up to $7,000,000. This solicitation builds on the round of selections announced in November 2023 – applicants may wish to review those selections to understand the types of projects that DOE expects to fund in this solicitation.

This effort seeks to support performers (e.g., municipal governments, community-based NGOs) in capacity building and workforce development planning in communities that host existing energy assets that have retired, or are slated for retirement, and that comprise or comprised a significant portion of local activities (e.g., jobs, tax revenue, and related considerations). In particular, the objective of this effort is to directly support an embedded work stream supported by a staffer whose primary responsibility is coordination and planning, with a particular emphasis on workforce development oriented around productively and sustainably repurposing such assets, their sites and associated infrastructure.

GPSA and Climate Collective are proud to launch the Green Accountability Technology Accelerator, an opportunity for those working to connect climate finance and citizen engagement through tech enabled solutions. The goal of the Green Accountability Technology Accelerator is to test and scale innovative tech solutions that bridge existing gaps in transparency, accountability, and participation in climate finance, enabling an efficient and trustworthy climate finance ecosystem. The Accelerator runs a 6-month virtual program to enable participation worldwide. We are building a diverse global community to develop scalable, replicable, and affordable tech enabled solutions. At the conclusion, participants will showcase their impact in a virtual Demo Day.

This FOA seeks applications with project teams ready to advance building energy codes within a particular region, state, or local jurisdiction. To drive sustained improvements, BIL emphasizes the importance of strategic partnerships, which must include a State or Tribal government agency, and may include other organizations, such as State or local building departments, builders, contractors, architects, engineers, other design and construction professionals, academia, research, trade organizations, consumer advocates, regional or community energy efficiency organizations, labor unions, apprenticeship programs, and other stakeholders who play an important role supporting the successful adoption and implementation of building codes. Funding provided through this FOA is specifically designed to update building energy codes and ensure the cost-effective implementation of these updated codes at the state and local level.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is being issued by the U.S. Department of Energy’s State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) on behalf of the Local Goverment Energy Program (LGEP). This FOA will support eligible local governments and Tribes to implement projects that provide direct community benefits, spark additional investments, meet community-identified priorities, and build local capacity. Community benefits may include creation of local economic opportunities for workers, workforce measures and agreements, community revitalization, lowered energy burdens, increased access to renewable energy, improved air quality, increased public participation in energy decision-making processes, and improved quality of life for local residents. Projects may span a range of geographic scopes and wide variety of technology areas including, but not limited to: building efficiency and/or electrification, electric transportation, energy infrastructure upgrades, microgrid development and deployment, renewable energy, resilience hubs, and workforce development.