Concept papers for electric utility DOE grant opportunities due December 16

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Concept papers for electric utility DOE grant opportunities due December 16

December 2, 2022

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced milestone deadlines for three competitive grant opportunities of interest to electric utilities as follows. 

Further information is available from materials presented in the DOE’s November 29 webinar.

40101(c) Grid Resiliency DOE direct competitive grants for:

1. Undergrounding of electrical equipment
2. Replacing old overhead conductors and underground cables
3. Hardening of powerlines, facilities, substations, or other systems
4. Relocation of powerlines or the re-conductoring of powerlines with low-sag, advanced conductors
5. Utility pole management
6. Monitoring and control technologies
7. Vegetation and fuel-load management
8. Weatherization technologies and equipment / Fire resistant technologies and fire prevention systems
9. Use or construction of distributed energy resources for enhancing system adaptive capacity during disruptions
10. Adaptive protection technologies / Advanced modeling technologies

Concept papers due: December 16, 2022

Response to concept papers: February 2023

Full application due: April 6, 2023

Note: Per DOE guidance, an eligible entity is not allowed to submit the same application for a grant under IIJA Section 40101(c) and Section 40101(d) (the state formula grant program for the above project types) in the same application cycle.

40107 Smart Grid DOE direct competitive grants – For deployment of technologies to enhance grid flexibility.
Concept papers due: December 16, 2022

Response to concept papers: February 2023

Full applications due: March 17, 2023

40103b Grid Innovation Program DOE direct competitive grants – For programs upgrading electric grids and ensuring reliability and resiliency

Concept papers due: January 13, 2023

Response to concept papers: March 2023

Full applications due: May 19, 2023

Entities planning to apply for any of the above grants should note that due to the high number of UEI requests and SAM registrations, entity legal business name and address validations are taking longer than expected to process. Entities should start the UEI and SAM registration/update process immediately as the processing time to complete a registration/update currently may take weeks to months. This includes address and expired registration updates. If entities have technical difficulties with the UEI validation or SAM registration process they should utilize the HELP feature on SAM.gov. SAM.gov will work entity service tickets in the order in which they are received and asks that entities not create multiple service tickets for the same request or technical issue.