Funding Opportunities

Upskill Prize for the Solar Manufacturing Workforce

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.

Program Focus: The National Forest Foundation’s new Collaborative Capacity Program financial awards will provide resources, invest in skills and tools, and support activities that make Tribal co-stewardship and collaboration for forest stewardship successful. Eligible collaborative efforts must describe how investments in collaboration will support a long-term strategy for achieving stewardship outcomes into the future and these outcomes must seek to benefit National Forest System lands. There are two funding pathways — one for Tribal Applicants and one for All Applicants.

This notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) is the first in an anticipated series of Landowner Support for Forest Resilience NOFOs. Landowner Support for Forest Resilience is currently funded by four Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions (Public Law No: 117-169. Subtitle D, Sec. 23002(a) (1 ), (2), (3), and (4)), which encompass cost share and payment incentives for forestry practices and support participation of underserved landowners and small-acreage landowners (owning less than 2,500 acres) in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience. Landowner Support for Forest Resilience falls under the USDA Forest Service's existing Landscape Scale Restoration Program, as authorized under Section 13A of the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 (16 U.S.C. 2109a). This program advances the Biden-Harris Administration's Justice40 Initiative. Established by Executive Order 14008 on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, the Justice40 Initiative has made it a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments, such as climate, clean energy, and other areas, flow to disadvantaged communities. This notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) solicits proposals for two IRA provisions: Subtitle D, Sec. 23002 (a)(2) and Subtitle D, Sec. 23002 (a)(3). These provisions provide the USDA Forest Service with funding to:

Support the participation of underserved forest landowners in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience.
Support the participation of forest landowners who own less than 2,500 acres of forest land in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is jointly issued by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) and Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) as part of their Interconnection Innovation Exchange (i2X) program1 to support innovative work to enable simpler, faster, and fairer interconnection of clean energy resources while enhancing the reliability, resiliency, and security of our electrical grid. The two FOA topic areas are as follows:

Topic Area 1: Improved Efficiency of EMT Simulations for Interconnection Studies of IBRs Projects in this topic area will seek to improve the efficiency of the interconnection study process for new IBRs, such as solar and wind plants and battery energy storage systems, by improving software tools to study plant dynamics to increase long-term plant reliability. Projects will achieve this both by improving the speed of advanced, high-fidelity EMT modeling and simulation tools used in power systems interconnection studies and by developing a better understanding of when such high-fidelity simulations are necessary in the interconnection process.

Topic Area 2: Dynamic Stability-Enhanced Network Assessment Tools Projects in this topic area will develop tools to provide stakeholders with data on transmission system characteristics related to stability, voltage, and grid strength while securing confidential and critical energy infrastructure information. Projects will establish the type of information required by stakeholders, develop a tool or tools, and test and evaluate those tools on at least one real transmission system. Topic Area 1 is primarily focused on the improvement of software tools, methods, or processes used to conduct EMT studies, the results of which will inform the transmission system interconnection stakeholders in Topic Area 2. Projects in Topic Area 2 do not need to be focused solely on transmission system characteristics based on EMT studies.

Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day and KidsGardening share a belief that the garden has the power to do more than grow flowers and herbs. It can grow people, communities, and even kindness, too. Together, we designed the Lots of Compassion Grant program to support local leaders looking to transform vacant lots into gardens to help grow compassion in their community.

About 15% of land in urban cities is deemed vacant or abandoned, which can lead to many negative outcomes for surrounding neighborhoods, including decreases in physical and mental health and diminished feelings of safety & security[1]. Lots of Compassion aims to provide resources to those seeking to transform vacant lots in their neighborhood into gardens for community growth.

Through the Lots of Compassion initiative, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day is pledging to provide up to $1 million from Compassion Flower product sales to support community garden transformations over the next five years. Now in its second year, ten grantees will receive $20,000 each to transform a vacant lot into a garden. A total of $200,000 will be awarded in 2024.

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL): CARBON CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM, FRONT-END ENGINEERING AND DESIGN FOR CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) TRANSPORT. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will fund Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) studies that support and accelerate the planning for CO2 transport by a variety of modes. The CO2 must be derived only from anthropogenic sources which could include CO2 derived by direct capture from ambient air and must be delivered to CO2 conversion sites or secure geologic storage facilities. The first release of DE-FOA-0002730 accepted applications for CO2 transport FEED studies consisting only of CO2 pipelines. The second release of the FOA accepted applications describing CO2 transport FEED studies for any single mode of transport such as pipeline, rail, truck, barge, or ship. The third release of this FOA accepts applications for all modes of CO2 transport (pipeline, truck, rail, barge, ship), including any combination of transport modes. Please see full FOA document for a detailed list of the changes.

The EPA, together with states, Tribes, and its many partners, protects public health by protecting current and future drinking water sources and ensuring the availability of high-quality drinking water. Two programs within the EPA that protect drinking water sources are the Underground Injection Control (UIC) and Source Water Protection (SWP) programs. The EPA is soliciting applications from eligible applicants to provide training to develop and expand the capability of state and Tribal UIC and SWP programs. Applicants should describe their proposed approach to providing training that will achieve these objectives. Applicants are encouraged to identify additional project elements in their applications that may not be included in this funding opportunity that may contribute to overall project success.

Brownfields Job Training Grants provide funding for a grant recipient to deliver trainings to unemployed and under-employed residents from communities impacted by brownfields. Students develop skills needed to secure fullt ime employment in various aspects of hazardous and solid waste management and within the larger environmental field, including sustainable cleanup and reuse, and chemical safety.

Funds may be used to offer trainings in:
Brownfields hazardous waste training
“Green Remediation” technologies
Green infrastructure and stormwater management
Emergency planning, preparedness, and response training for emergencies leading to contamination on brownfield sites
Enhanced environmental health and safety related to site remediation
Energy efficiency and alternative energy technologies
Training in assessment, inventory, analysis, and remediation of brownfield sites
Use of techniques and methods for cleanup of hazardous substances
Awareness training in Environmental Stewardship and Environmental Justice
Training in climate change mitigation and adaption

The purpose of this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) is to support research on interventions to improve health in Native American populations. This includes 1) etiologic research that will directly inform intervention development or adaptations, 2) research that develops, adapts, or tests interventions for health promotion, prevention, treatment, or recovery, and 3) where a sufficient body of knowledge on intervention efficacy exists, research on dissemination and implementation that develops and tests strategies to overcome barriers to the adoption, integration, scale-up, and sustainability of effective interventions. Through this initiative, intervention and related research is sought to build upon community knowledge, resources, and resilience to identify and rigorously test culturally appropriate solutions to reduce morbidity and mortality. The inclusion of Native American investigators serving on the study teams or as the PD(s)/PI(s) is strongly encouraged.

For the purposes of this NOFO, Native Americans include the following populations: Alaska Natives, American Indians (whose ancestral lands fall at least partially within the U.S. mainland border), and Native Hawaiians. The term Native Hawaiian means any individual any of whose ancestors were natives, prior to 1778, of the area, which now comprises the State of Hawaii.

The Electronics Scrap Recycling Advancement Prize (E-SCRAP) is a $3.95M challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO). The prize aims to stimulate innovative approaches that reduce the costs and environmental impact of critical material recovery from electronic scrap (e-scrap).

E-scrap—which includes mobile phones, home appliances, medical or office equipment, and anything else powered by electricity—represents the fastest growing waste stream globally, with e-scrap generation expected to double between 2014 and 2030. Only 17.4% of e-scrap was collected and recycled globally in 2019, discarding 83% of e-waste and $57B in raw material value. However, e-scrap recovery faces numerous roadblocks, including a fragmented recycling value chain, a complex and dynamic feedstock, and a rapidly evolving end-use market. In response, E-SCRAP is challenging American entrepreneurs to revolutionize critical material recovery and reshape the future of sustainable manufacturing.

E-SCRAP is not just a competition; it’s a catalyst for change. By addressing challenges in the e-scrap recycling value chain, competitor teams can each win up to $800,000 in cash prizes and $150,000 in national laboratory analysis support over the course of the three-phase competition.

The prize is open to competitors looking to:
Build partnerships across the recycling value chain to optimize and integrate critical material separation and recovery technologies.
Develop and demonstrate innovations along the recycling value chain to enhance the recovery of critical materials from e-scrap.
Select at least one challenge (technical, supply chain, or related logistics hurdle) that needs further development and establish high impact opportunities (co-recovery, feedstock flexibility, information share, material benchmarking…) that will increase the domestic supply of critical materials from e-scrap.
Create or enhance supply chains to increase material circularity (e.g., accelerating connectivity between collection, sorting, pre-treatment, processing, refining, validation, and material qualification)