The $15 million Energizing Rural Communities Prize challenges individuals and organizations to develop partnership plans or innovative financing strategies to help rural or remote communities improve their energy systems and advance clean energy demonstration projects. The Energizing Rural Communities Prize has two tracks, both following a two-phase timeline:

• The Partner track—with a $10 million cash prize pool—will support plans to connect rural or remote communities to government funding, technical assistance, or a network of partners that can help implement clean energy demonstration projects.
• The Finance track—with a $5 million cash prize pool—will support plans to access capital or to develop community ownership models to help finance clean energy demonstration projects in rural or remote areas.

Through the NEVI program, Alaska will receive more than $50 million from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) over five years to advance a statewide EV fast charging network. This program will adapt Alaska’s infrastructure system to support reliable, equitable and sustainable electric transportation while meeting community and economic needs. AEA is soliciting competitive applications for the purpose of installing electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) at up to 14 Sites throughout the State along Alaska’s Alternative Fuel Corridor (AFC). The scope of
this project will include design, construction, installation of software and hardware, operations, maintenance and reporting.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) partners with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP) to help remote and island communities transform their energy systems and increase energy resilience. ETIPP employs a community-driven approach to identify and plan resilient clean energy solutions that address a community’s specific challenges. This approach combines the experience and expertise of local community leaders, residents, and organizations with the ETIPP partner network. The ETIPP partner network connects selected communities with regional nonprofit or academic organizations (“regional partners”), energy experts at DOE research institutions (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NREL, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories), and DOE clean energy technology offices to navigate options for addressing local energy resilience challenges.

The Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling Grant Program is designed to provide grants to small- and medium-sized manufacturers to enable them to build new or retrofit existing manufacturing and industrial facilities to produce or recycle advanced energy products in communities where coal mines or coal power plants have closed. Grants are available until the total $750M is expended.

Through this funding opportunity announcement (FOA), the DOE is soliciting applications from Indian Tribes, which include Alaska Native Regional Corporations and Village Corporations, Intertribal Organizations, and Tribal Energy Development Organizations to:

• Install clean energy generating systems and/or energy efficiency measures for tribal buildings
• Deploy community-scale clean energy generating systems or community energy storage on tribal lands
• Install integrated energy systems for autonomous operation (independent of the traditional centralized electric power grid) to power a single or multiple essential tribal buildings during emergency situations or for tribal community resilience
• Provide electric power to tribal buildings, which otherwise would be unelectrified

The Joint Office provides technical assistance on planning and implementation of a national network of electric vehicle chargers and zero-emission fueling infrastructure as well as zero-emission transit and school buses.

The Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) is a stakeholder partnership to enable a simpler, faster, and fairer interconnection process for clean energy resources while enhancing the reliability, resiliency, and security of our electric grid.  One of the key activities of i2X is to provide technical assistance that will directly support stakeholders in improving interconnection practices and processes for electricity distribution systems and the transmission system, also known as the bulk power system. The technical assistance must be specific to the interconnection of solar, wind, storage, or electric vehicle charging facilities, or a hybrid integration of these technologies. The i2X team has allocated up to $750,000 for this technical assistance opportunity and intends to select up to 12 projects.

Mass Fleet Advisor aims to bridge the technical expertise gap by pairing businesses and non-profits with a technical consultant who will work with you to analyze your fleet and come up with an electrification plan that is tailored to your business. Lead by CALSTART, Inc., the consultant team will provide FREE electrification planning to interested private, commercial, and non-profit fleet managers. Sixty-Five eligible fleets will receive one-on-one support and a Fleet Electrification Report including a site assessment, total cost of ownership analysis, vehicle market inventory analysis, charging analysis, and next step recommendations.

EmPower Massachusetts offers multiple stages of investment in communities and community-based organizations so that they can explore, develop, and implement program models or projects that provide access to the benefits of clean energy for previously underserved populations. This MassCEC program crowd-sources new and innovative ideas, then helps put them into action. EmPower offers funding to meet the following goals:

• Build organizational capacity ($5,000 to $25,000 grants)
• Explore innovative solutions ($5,000 to $25,000 grants)
• Implement solutions ($50,000 to $150,000 grants)

Through this Request for Proposals (“RFP”), the Massachusetts Clean Energy Technology Center (“MassCEC”) is offering Community Engagement Planning Grants.  The Community Engagement Planning Grants will provide direct support to community-based organizations, municipalities, or other entities that represent the community interest (“Communities”) to support meaningful community input in the development and deployment of solar energy projects owned by electric and gas distribution companies (“EDCs”).

The purpose of this program is to support the creation of good-paying jobs, spur economic revitalization, remediate environmental degradation, and support energy workers located in energy communities. Energy communities are defined as those that have experienced employment loss and/or economic dislocation events as a result of declines in the fossil fuel industry; and/or are disproportionately reliant on fossil fuel energy production or distribution, including coal, oil, gas, and power plants. Supported projects may include the creation or expansion of business(es) that reduce emissions of toxic substances and greenhouse gases from existing and abandoned infrastructure and that prevent environmental damage that harms communities and poses a risk to public health and safety. Supported projects may also employ individuals from energy communities but focus on a range of other industries.

The program provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for renewable energy systems or to make energy efficiency improvements. Agricultural producers may also apply for new energy efficient equipment and new system loans for agricultural production and processing.

Renewable Energy System Grants range from $2,500 – $1 million. Energy Efficiency Grants range from $1,500 – $500,000.