DOE Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations

📢 *New Funding Alert* 📢 Up to $400M in new funding for innovative, community-focused clean energy projects in rural and remote areas across the United States. Through this funding, OCED aims to support the deployment of a variety of commercially available, clean energy technologies, demonstrating the viability and benefits to rural and remote residents, and ultimately encouraging widespread adoption. Each project can receive anywhere from $2 million to $50 million in funding.    Concept papers are due February 27, 2025 and full applications are due August 28, 2025. View the funding opportunity for full details: https://lnkd.in/eMmfe-uF

This week, OCED awarded five projects across three programs with more than $8 million out of the total federal cost share of $224+ million. The Energy Improvements in Remote and Rural Areas program has two projects constructing microgrids to improve energy resilience, accessibility, and affordability for residents. Another project in Alaska includes plans to build a new run-of-the-river hydroelectric facility, replacing a 70+ year-old wooden dam and eliminating 100% of their microgrid’s diesel consumption.     In West Virginia, the Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land plans to convert two former coal mines into utility-scale, solar PV facilities—reducing development on sensitive lands, delivering clean power to communities, and contributing to regional economic revitalization.  Rounding out the week is a Texas-based project from the Industrial Demonstrations Program that would recycle liquid byproducts into syngas, resulting in a 75% decrease in CO2 emissions associated with select incineration processes at a manufacturing site. Learn more this week’s awarded projects: https://lnkd.in/gP7kzqyx Stay up-to-date on all future awards, funding opportunities, news announcements, upcoming events, and more, subscribe here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eDJVVENA 

OCED is thrilled to announce it has selected three projects for award negotiations to accelerate our Distributed Energy Systems (DES) Demonstrations Program. These projects will help the U.S. to develop a more responsive, resilient, and economical electric grid that is critical to meeting the demands of an increasingly electrified world filled with electric vehicles, advanced industrial operations, smart technologies, and sizeable energy storage. As more sectors turn to electrification to decarbonize, the ability to manage a more diverse set of grid assets will add energy resilience in a time of increasing demand and disruption due to extreme weather events. By generating electricity near the communities where it will be used, distributed energy systems help communities: ⚡ reduce the impact of power outages and protect consumers from the harshest impacts of outages  ⚡ boost grid stability and reliability while potentially reducing costs for communities to maintain power  ⚡ become more energy resilient and secure against increasing climate vulnerabilities Learn more about the DES projects selected for award negotiations here: https://lnkd.in/ehG7iFwB

JUST ANNOUNCED 📣: OCED issued its intent to fund up to $1.3 billion for transformative carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies. The anticipated funding is part of the Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program and the Carbon Capture Large-Scale Pilot Projects Program and will help create good-paying jobs, reduce pollution to deliver healthier communities, and ensure America’s global leadership in developing the cost-effective emissions reducing technologies needed to decarbonize the nation's electricity generation and hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors. Read the Notice of Intent: https://lnkd.in/eWq5NTtW. Register for the upcoming informational webinar: https://lnkd.in/egsaGS33 Stay up-to-date on all future awards, funding opportunities, news announcements, upcoming events, and more, subscribe to our newsletter today 👉: https://lnkd.in/eDJVVENA #Innovation #Sustainability #Decarbonization #EnergyTransition

This week, OCED awarded more than $38 million to six projects across four programs. The Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land had its first awardees. One project plans to convert former coal mine land into a closed-loop pumped-storage hydroelectric facility in Bell County, KY. The other plans to develop a solar photovoltaic farm on a former mining site in Clearfield County, PA. Awarded under the Industrial Demonstrations Program, Cleveland-Cliffs' Middletown Works facility in Middletown, OH, plans to replace a blast furnace with a hydrogen-ready flex-fuel Direct Reduced Iron plant and two electric melting furnaces. Rounding out the week are two grants for the Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas program, and one project under the Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program. Learn more this week’s awarded projects: https://lnkd.in/egr7447e Stay up-to-date on all future awards, funding opportunities, news announcements, upcoming events, and more, subscribe to our newsletter today 👉 https://lnkd.in/eDJVVENA

🚨 Clean Energy Alert 🚨 — Today, OCED issued a Notice of Intent for up to $1.8B to support a broad range of promising Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies on their path to commercialization and deployment that can accelerate the growth of additional DAC Hubs.   The anticipated funding aims to provide potential applicants with flexible and comprehensive pathways to spur the development of commercial DAC facilities, including DAC facilities at mid- to large-scale along with supporting infrastructure, and expand to Regional DAC Hubs. Funding is anticipated to be announced in winter 2024 and OCED intends to offer funding in recurring openings. Read the NOI and register for an upcoming webinar: https://lnkd.in/eMbGB6JA

Congratulations to the Phase Two winners of the Energizing Rural Communities Prize! Yesterday, OCED announced 33 community winners for the second phase of the $15 million Energizing Rural Communities Prize. Each winning team receives $200,000 to advance their partnership and financing strategies to demonstrate clean energy projects that make energy systems more reliable, resilient, and affordable in rural or remote areas.   Learn more about the winners and their innovative plans: https://lnkd.in/epvNzJxh  #CleanEnergy #AmericanMade #Innovation 

This week, OCED awarded nearly $50 million across three programs to help launch four projects in partnership with the private sector to accelerate the deployment of clean energy technologies. These projects range from decarbonizing a pulp and paper mill in Mississippi to extending miles of underground power lines to a rural, unserved area in northeast Washington. Learn more about all the awarded projects: https://lnkd.in/enmKq5W4   To stay up-to-date on all future awards, funding opportunities, news announcements, upcoming events, and more, sign up for our newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/eDJVVENA

It’s time for Project Management 101 🎓 Before ground breaks on clean energy demonstration projects, applicants must first embark on the application and award negotiation process. These two steps help ensure that OCED selects the most promising, intentional, and impactful projects for funding. Once a funding opportunity is announced, OCED often takes hundreds of applications from across the country into consideration. Our expert internal and external reviewers rigorously evaluate applications based on merit and the criteria listed in the funding announcement and make recommendations to DOE selection officials, who then select projects to begin award negotiations.  Then, the merit reviewers’ feedback may be used to inform award negotiations to further improve the projects before the first phase of funding is awarded. At the conclusion of negotiations, OCED releases a project fact sheet and summary of the community benefit commitments for Phase 1.   Stay tuned for more Project Management 101 to learn about planning, development, and more! Learn more: https://lnkd.in/emTPKsEm

This week, OCED awarded more than $70 million across five programs to kick off seven projects—from installing heat pumps in rural Maine to demonstrating a direct air capture hub in Texas to capture legacy carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—bringing us one step closer to filling a critical innovation gap on the pathway to a decarbonized energy future. Learn more about these awarded projects and how OCED works in partnership with the private sector to accelerate market adoption and deploy clean energy technologies: https://lnkd.in/eMA4b2Ym To stay up-to-date on all future awards, funding opportunities, news announcements, upcoming events, and more, sign up for our newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/eDJVVENA