The Urban, Indoor, and Emerging Agriculture (UIE) program supports research, education, and extension work by awarding grants to solve key problems of local, regional, and national importance that facilitate development of urban, indoor, and emerging agricultural systems. The program includes food value chain stages: production, harvesting, transportation, aggregation, packaging, distribution, and markets.
The Solar District Cup challenges multidisciplinary student teams to design and model distributed energy systems for a campus or urban district. These systems integrate solar, storage, and other distributed energy capabilities across mixed-use districts, or groups of buildings served by a common electrical distribution feeder. The competition engages students in engineering, finance, urban planning, sustainability, and other disciplines or degree programs to reimagine how energy is generated, managed, and used in a district.
On June 23rd, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CEMII) for Industrial Decarbonization through Electrification of Process Heating Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). This FOA will provide up to $70 million in federal funding to develop and fund a new institute that will conduct research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) focused on developing and scaling electrified processes that reduce emissions, improve flexibility, and enhance energy efficiency of industrial process heating.
Full applications are due October 25, and concept papers are due August 9.
Geothermal energy is poised to be a key contributor in the shift to a sustainable energy future. The PIVOT 2022 SPE Datathon is going to challenge participants to solve a geothermal engineering problem using real field data from the Utah FORGE Project. Participants are going to use modern machine learning methods to create predictive models to aid future geothermal energy production. Participants are going to work on one of the largest geothermal datasets assembled including never before analyzed data. They will leverage their combined engineering and data skillsets to generate actionable insights to help solve the real-world design problem. First week of the competition will be for networking and team creation. The competition will start on June 27th, 2022.
More details regarding prizes and data for the competition will be announced shortly.
The Solar Prize encourages the rapid development of innovative solar energy solutions capable of addressing the tough challenges facing the solar industry. Solar Prize competitors participate in three contests—the Ready!, Set!, and Go! Contests—to transform their ideas into reality in months, rather than years. Competitors have the chance to win part of $4.1 million in prizes to help them advance in the competition and accelerate the development of their solution.
Round 6 includes an optional additional challenge that focuses on advancing solar in underserved communities. Participants who choose to incorporate this initiative into their solutions have the chance to be considered for a new Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Contest and a bonus cash prize!
The Tribal Energy Innovation (TEI) Fellowship will be entering its third year and is offering a $25,000 award designated for federally-recognized tribal members who are entrepreneurs, or a member of a cooperative or social/business enterprise which supports renewable energy infrastructure and capacity building in tribal communities. The Fellowship is designed to develop and strengthen tribal energy sovereignty and resilience in Indian Country by supporting tribal members who are entrepreneurs or a member of a social/business enterprise that advances sustainable renewable energy solutions and capacity building in tribal communities.
During the year-long, stipend fellowship, fellows learn from GRID staff, from one another, and from industry mentors and professionals on best practices in renewable energy planning, business, workforce development and training, and other areas of technical support. GRID Alternatives and the Tribal Solar Accelerator Fund have partnerships across the U.S. to provide a network of professional, educational support and opportunities with industry leaders, and exposure to advanced technologies from around the world. The fellowship culminates with a business presentation to GRID staff, industry professionals and other renewable energy changemakers looking to invest in innovative approaches to the unique energy needs across Indian Country.
Our mission is to provide Black/Brown woman-identifying founders with access to community, capital, and capacity building in order to meet business milestones that lead to economic advancement through entrepreneurship. We fund and scale tech-enabled, revenue-generating businesses (under $1M) founded by people who identify as Black/Brown and woman. We ignite civic engagement and hyperlocal infrastructure at the intersection of business support services, supplier diversity, social and financial capital.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is issuing this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) to invest in innovative research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects that accelerate the large-scale development and deployment of renewable energy to support an equitable transition to a decarbonized electricity system by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
Applicants will assimilate data from a variety of sources into novel tools, “dashboards,” or other applications that will assess the impacts and tradeoffs, including potential benefits and challenges of locally-based energy generation. These tools should be accessible and easy-to-use to a wide array of stakeholders that are not necessarily electric power system experts. Achievement of this goal should accelerate deployment of renewable energy towards an equitable de-carbonized grid, and it will come through pursuit of several concurrent objectives in successful system design.
DOE expects to make two to five awards under this funding opportunity, each ranging from $2 to $5 million. DOE seeks a diverse set of applicants, including universities, research and development centers, individuals, and civil society organizations. DOE encourages the participation of underserved communities and underrepresented groups. As part of the application, applicants should describe how they will incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives in the project.
For more information, view the full FOA or register for the EERE information webinar on June 22.
The Hydrogen Shot Incubator supports teams as they develop transformative concepts into early-stage prototypes ready for lab-scale demonstration, through two phases and culminating with a Pitch Day.
Phase I – due August 17: In the Propose! Phase participants will access resources and environments to foster new solution concepts and develop them into plans for early-stage prototypes in rapid learning cycles. Submission packages must highlight a concept for clean hydrogen production, focusing on lowering the hydrogen production cost. DOE will select up to ten winners to advance in the competition.
Phase II – due June 2023: Winners of the Propose! phase will develop their concepts and designs with the help of national laboratory experts. Submissions for the Prove! phase must include a plan with preliminary designs for a laboratory-scale demonstration along with technoeconomic and emissions analyses to validate the proposed idea. DOE will select up to five winners for additional cash and voucher support.
Available in the following cities for small businesses with at least 51% ownership by BIPOC persons or a woman: Atlanta, GA; Detroit, MI; Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN; Philadelphia, PA; Pittsburgh, PA. 500 grants totaling $5 million will be distributed as follows:
WomensNet’s Grants give away a $10,000 Amber Grant every month to a woman entrepreneur, and an additional annual $25,000 Amber Grant to one of the preceding 12 monthly Amber Grant winners. They also give away another $10,000 grant every month to a “Business Category” entrepreneur.
Additional Ventures is partnering with Ocean Visions and a consortium of philanthropic funders to invite pre-proposals to develop prototypes that could enable safe, cost-efficient, and scalable OAE. This request for proposals (RFP) is part of the Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement R&D Program, an ambitious effort to accelerate understanding of OAE as a potential method for large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR). The OAE Engineering Award complements the recently announced OAE Research Award, which assesses whether OAE can safely, and permanently sequester atmospheric CO2 at scale.
