DOE to Offer $20M for Building Energy Efficiency and Innovation in Revised RFP

Jan. 20, 2016
Concept papers are now due Feb. 5, 2016 for $20 million being offered by the U.S. Department of Energy in a revised solicitation for building energy efficiency technologies.

Concept papers are now due Feb. 5, 2016 for $20 million being offered by the U.S. Department of Energy in a revised solicitation for building energy efficiency technologies.

The funding opportunity (DE-FOA-0001383) comes from the DOE’s Building Technologies Office (BTO).

The DOE is combining early-stage topics (Innovations) with later-stage, roadmap-driven topics (Frontiers) that complement the core funding provided by the program.

The federal agency seeks promising solutions to the market barriers that hinder the growth of energy efficiency in the small and medium commercial buildings and tenant spaces. The DOE wants to build a path for market-ready solutions to be used at scale across the United States to improve commercial building energy efficiency.

However, the DOE says that well-documented informational, structural, and market barriers — such as split incentives, asymmetrical or inadequate information, higher first costs and high investment hurdle rates. These impede the adoption of more energy efficient technologies and practices. The barriers are a particular problem for small and medium size commercial buildings (between 50,000 and 100,000 square feet in gross floor area).

Small commercial buildings (under 50,000 square feet in gross floor area) account for more than 40 percent of the energy used in the commercial sector. Commercial buildings can be made much more efficient using a variety of cost effective efficiency improvements while creating jobs and building a stronger economy

The money is meant to help the federal government achieve its energy savings goal of 20 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2030.

The revised solicitation includes several modifications to the original request for proposals.

  • Total available federal funding has increased from $8 million to $20 million.
  • The number of anticipated awards has increased to approximately 17-25.
  • The new deadline for concept papers is February 5, 2016.
  • The second webinar has been rescheduled to March 17, 2016.

The new deadline for full applications is April 19, 2016.

The contact is: [email protected]. The revised solicitation is available at the EERE Opportunity Funding Exchange.

Track additional energy efficiency RFPs by following us on Twitter @EfficiencyMkts

About the Author

Elisa Wood | Editor-in-Chief

Elisa Wood is the editor and founder of EnergyChangemakers.com. She is co-founder and former editor of Microgrid Knowledge.

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