1. Large Wind Blade Additive Manufacturing – This topic seeks projects that build on existing polymer-based AM research that supports and advances more cost-effective large wind turbine blades. Polymer-based AM generally allows for rapid prototyping, tooling, fabrication, and testing while enabling novel designs and process configurations.
2. Additive Manufacturing of Non-Blade Wind Turbine Components – This topic seeks innovative additive manufacturing solutions for lower-cost, higher-performance non-blade wind turbine system components. The focus is on non-blade components that can be improved via additive manufacturing processing and associated design and process innovation/integration.
3. Large Wind Blades – Advanced Manufacturing, Materials, and Sustainability – This topic is comprised of four areas of interest: Automation, Digitalization, Sustainability, and Modular Blade Construction/Joining. DOE is seeking projects that address remaining challenges to wind turbine manufacturing and that further previous work within these respective areas of interest.

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.

The American-Made Net Load Forecasting Prize is open to forecasting industry organizations that cater to utilities, system operators, and power plant owners, as well as academic teams with machine learning capabilities that are interested in forecasting. Competitors are required to submit daily day-ahead probabilistic net load forecasts, with an hourly resolution, over the course of four weeks and across multiple distinct climatic locations in the United States. The Solar Forecast Arbiter will be used to evaluate how well each competitor’s forecasts performed compared to a benchmark forecast. By using the Arbiter for comparing forecast performance, the Prize helps demonstrate the feasibility of fair, transparent, and high-quality evaluations of probabilistic net load forecasts using a publicly available open-source platform.

This prize offers up to $600,000 in cash prizes, with three anticipated winners and three anticipated runners-up.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) and the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) announced more than $18 million in available funding for research and development projects that focus on the characterization, treatment, and management of produced water—or wastewater associated with oil and natural gas development and production—as well as management of legacy wastewater associated with coal-based thermal electric power generation facilities, primarily coal combustion residuals waste streams. Apply by April 12, 2023.

The “Reducing Agricultural Carbon Intensity and Protecting Algal Crops” funding opportunity will improve the production of environmentally sustainable feedstocks for bioenergy through two topic areas:

1. Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices for Low-Carbon Intensity Feedstocks, and
2. Algae Crop Protection

The funding will also support projects that cultivate and protect algae crops, an abundant and renewable biofuel source vulnerable to loss from predation, organic competition, and pest infestation.

SPARK Virginia works to build an innovation cluster creating solutions for the entire value chain – making it safer and easier to build, generate, transmit, and consume nuclear and hydrogen energy in Virginia and beyond. SPARK Virginia kicks off in February 2023 with a set of two public innovation challenges hosted in the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas that will award early commercialization grants to inventors and engineers in select hard-tech areas to develop preliminary business models exploring the commercial viability of their technology.

GTO’s EGS program actively pursues research, development, and demonstration projects to facilitate technology validation and demonstration, reduce cost, and improve performance of EGS.  The technology developments targeted in this FOA are intended to increase geothermal power production in the United States in the near-term from areas surrounding existing geothermal fields (Topic Area 1) while facilitating new opportunities for widespread power (or power with cascaded heat production) in the future from regions where heat is present, yet no geothermal energy production exists (Topic Areas 2, 3, and 4).

The US Department of Transportation welcomes small businesses to participate in the U.S. DOT’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The purpose of this solicitation is to invite small businesses, with their valuable resources and creative capabilities, to submit innovative research ideas and solutions in response to the topics identified by the U.S. DOT as described in Section VIII.

This FOA will support RD&D of affordable hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, as aligned with the vision outlined in DOE’s draft national clean hydrogen strategy and roadmap targeting four topics of interest critical to enabling the use of clean hydrogen across sectors, particularly in medium- and heavy-duty (MD/HD) vehicles and other heavy-duty transportation applications. Topic areas include:

1. Hydrogen Carrier Development
2. Onboard Storage Systems for Liquid Hydrogen
3. Liquid Hydrogen Transfer/Fueling Components and Systems
4. M2FCT: High Performing, Durable Membrane Electrode Assemblies for
   Medium- and Heavy-duty Applications

The Department of Energy’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) announced a $23 million funding opportunity that will establish a regional network of Technical Assistance Partnerships (TAPs) to help industrial facilities and other large energy users increase the adoption of onsite energy technologies.

1. Topic 1 – Regional Onsite TAPs: Funding for up to 10 entities to serve as regional Onsite Energy TAPs. Each TAP will represent a multi-state region and serve as the primary technical, market, and policy point of contact for end-users and other state and local stakeholders.
2. Topic 2 – Onsite Energy Technical Analysis and Support Center: Funding for one national entity to serve as the Onsite Energy Technical Analysis and Support Center (TASC). The TASC will centrally coordinate technical analysis and programmatic activities of the Onsite Energy TAPs.

The Low-Income Community Solar and Energy Assistance Fellowship offers energy professionals the opportunity to work with state and regional organizations to support the development of the Community Solar Subscription Tool. This tool, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with three pilot regions (District of Columbia, Illinois, New Mexico), aims to make community solar subscriptions that include verified savings and consumer protections more accessible to households participating in government-run low-income support programs, beginning with the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The fellowship will enable talented candidates from diverse backgrounds to spend up to two years working at host organizations in participating pilot regions. Fellows receive a stipend, health benefits, and an educational allowance.

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.