This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled “Community Geothermal Heating and Cooling Design and Deployment” is issued by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO).
Building a clean and equitable energy economy and addressing the climate crisis is a top priority of the Biden Administration. This FOA will advance the Biden Administration’s goals to achieve carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035 and to “deliver an equitable, clean energy future, and put the United States on a path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050 to the benefit of all Americans. The Department of Energy is committed to pushing the frontiers of science and engineering, catalyzing clean energy jobs through research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D), and ensuring environmental justice and inclusion of underserved communities.
The overall FOA objective is to support the formation of U.S. community coalitions that will develop, design, and install community geothermal heating and cooling systems that supply at least 25% of the overall community heating or heating and cooling demand in communities where current fuel use to heat or heat and cool homes and/or businesses results in increased greenhouse gas emissions. An overarching goal of this FOA is to support community coalitions seeking to deploy geothermal systems that can reduce the disproportionate shares of energy costs and associated environmental contaminants to underserved populations in a diverse set of communities. Target applicants are anticipated to be U.S. community coalitions. Coalitions can be from urban, suburban, rural, remote, island, or islanded communities where geothermal technology can reduce dependence on fossil fuels such as natural gas or heating oil.
Additional FOA objectives include:
An entity may only submit one Full Application to this FOA.
Deadline: Oct. 11, 2022
Target applicants are anticipated to be U.S. community coalitions that include representatives for each of the four roles described in the subsequent paragraphs. Coalitions can be from urban, suburban, rural, remote, island, or islanded communities where geothermal can reduce dependence on fossil fuels such as natural gas or heating oil.
Roles that each coalition must include in their application are:
1) Community team member(s) who understands and can communicate the energy, environmental, economic, social, and/or other relevant needs that the proposed system would address, as well as local development and regulatory requirements. Examples include local community leadership groups; local planning, zoning, and code officials; communitybased organizations; local environmental justice organizations; state, local, and Tribal governments; building owners and developers.
2) Workforce team member(s) who know the community labor market and are capable of helping the coalition with apprenticeship opportunities, job placement, and developing training or lesson plans for the applicable trades. Examples include private companies, trade schools, universities, Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) and other institutions with expertise in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) or energy system development; local unions with relevant technical expertise; non-profits with experience in energy system workforce programs.
3) Analysis/Design team member(s) who have experience designing geothermal systems as well as analyzing the economic and technical aspects of such systems. Examples include geothermal and district energy subject matter experts certified in geothermal heat pump design and installation; national labs with technical and economic analysis capabilities related to geothermal systems; MSIs and other institutions with expertise in HVAC or energy system development; engineers, operations researchers, architects, energy modelers, district system design consultants, energy utilities, and site planners.
4) Deployment team member(s) who have experience building new or retrofitting existing energy systems. Examples include private or nonprofit organizations with demonstrated experience deploying relevant geothermal heating and cooling technologies in similar settings.
EERE expects to make a total of approximately $13,000,000 of federal funding available for new awards under this FOA, subject to the availability of appropriated funds. EERE anticipates making approximately 1-10 awards under this FOA for Budget Period 1. EERE may issue one, multiple, or no awards. Individual awards may vary between $300,000 and $750,000.
EERE anticipates making approximately 1–4 awards under this FOA for Budget Period 2. EERE may issue one, multiple, or no awards. Individual awards may vary between $2,500,000 and approximately $10,000,000.
