Slots: 1
Deadlines
Internal Deadline: Contact RII.
LOI: April 17, 2023
External Deadline: June 23, 2023, 5pm PT
Award Information
Award Type: Cooperative Agreement
Estimated Number of Awards: EERE anticipates making approximately 37-62 awards under this FOA. EERE may issue one, multiple, or no awards. Individual awards may vary between up to $750,000 and up to $10,000,000.
Anticipated Award Amount: EERE expects to make a total of approximately $155,700,000 of federal funding available for new awards under this FOA, subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
Who May Serve as PI: Institutions of higher education are eligible to apply as a Domestic Entity.
Link to Award: https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/Default.aspx#FoaId91b42212-f3d5-46d5-b5ce-203ed0d64971
Process for Limited Submissions
PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Research Initiatives and Infrastructure (RII) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/. Use the template provided here: RII Limited Submission Applicant Template
Materials to submit include:
- (1) Two-Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 2-page limit will be excluded from review. You must use the template linked above.
- (2) CV – (5 pages maximum)
Note: The portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#, Gender, and Ethnicity. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.
Purpose
This funding opportunity is part of an integrated industrial decarbonization technology development strategy for DOE’s basic and applied research offices. Rooted in the principles identified in the 2022 Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap, DOE is building an innovation pipeline to accelerate the development and adoption of industrial decarbonization technologies with investments spanning foundational science; RD&D; and technical assistance and workforce development.3 DOE’s highly coordinated RD&D investments – leveraging resources and expertise from the Offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), Nuclear Energy (NE), and Science (SC) – are designed to achieve deep decarbonization across the industrial sector, targeting both industry-specific innovations and crosscutting technologies. This technology development strategy complements the demonstration and deployment efforts led by DOE’s Offices of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) and Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) and the Loan Programs Office (LPO).
Decarbonizing the industrial sector is critical to achieving net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050. In 2020, the industrial sector accounted for 33% of the nation’s primary energy use and 30% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.4 However, the industrial sector is considered one of the most difficult to decarbonize due to the diversity and complexity of energy inputs, processes, and operations.5 Achieving net-zero emissions across the U.S. economy by 2050 will require an aggressive, multidimensional approach to eliminating industrial emissions.
In addition to consuming significant amounts of energy, resulting in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, many processes used in industrial facilities produce air pollutants with harmful impacts on respiratory and cardiovascular health, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM). In the United States, racial and ethnic minority groups as well as lowerincome groups are disproportionately exposed to elevated levels of air pollution and, consequently, experience higher rates of adverse health impacts compared to the general population.6 Addressing pollution from industrial energy use is an integral step towards achieving environmental justice by remediating social, economic, and health burdens on those disproportionately harmed by industrial sector emissions.7 Assessing community-level impacts and prioritizing energy justice help ensure the benefits of investments to decarbonize industry will flow to disadvantaged communities.8 For additional insights, a broader look at environmental impact factors and associated lifecycle analysis is provided in the Quadrennial Technology Review 2015 technology assessment focused on sustainable manufacturing.9
Specifically, this FOA will fund high-impact, applied research and development and prototype or pilot-scale technology validation and demonstration projects to advance the transformational technologies and innovations necessary to reduce energy use and GHG emissions in the industrial sector. This FOA advances the strategies identified in the Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap10 and will focus on cross-sector approaches for industrial decarbonization (thermal processing, exploratory cross-sector topics, and low carbon fuels utilization) along with high GHG-emitting subsectors (chemicals, iron and steel, food and beverage, cement and concrete, and forest products). The focus will be energy-related emissions as well as non-energy-related process emissions (e.g., CO2 from the calcination process in cement production). Cross-sector approaches include RD&D on components and equipment systems, technologies with broad applications across the industrial sector, and the integration of technology in industry-specific conditions. By accelerating the development and adoption of sustainable technologies that increase efficiency and eliminate industrial GHG emissions, the RD&D activities to be funded under this FOA will contribute to a clean and equitable energy economy, bolster the technological and economic competitiveness of domestic manufacturing, and boost the viability and competitiveness of U.S. industrial technology exports.
This FOA and its associated projects are distinct from any existing or forthcoming efforts funded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or Inflation Reduction Act, including activities related to Industrial Demonstration Projects.11
Topic Areas:
- Decarbonizing Industrial Heat
- Low-Carbon Fuels Utilization R&D
- a. Enabling Flexible Industrial Energy Use
b. Enhanced Thermal Conductivity Materials - Decarbonizing Chemicals
- Decarbonizing Iron and Steel
- Decarbonizing Food and Beverage Products
- Decarbonizing Cement and Concrete
- Decarbonizing Paper and Forest Products
Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.