FY20 Bioenergy Technologies Multi-Topic FOA

Notice of Intent to Issue

Funding Opportunity Announcement No. DE-FOA-0002203

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) intends to issue, on behalf of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled “FY20 Bioenergy Technologies Multi-Topic FOA”.

BETO develops technologies that convert domestic biomass and waste resources into fuels, products, and power to enable affordable energy, economic growth, and innovation in renewable energy and chemicals production. The activities funded through this opportunity will be a component of the comprehensive U.S. energy strategy to enhance energy supply, create domestic jobs, secure the nation’s global leadership in bioenergy technologies and improve U.S. energy security.

This FOA will support high-impact technology research and development (R&D) to enable growth and innovation of the Bioeconomy. The topic areas will focus on BETO's objectives to reduce the minimum fuel selling price of drop-in biofuels, lower the cost of biopower, and enable high-value products from biomass or waste resources.

EERE anticipates the FOA may include the following Topic Areas:

  1. Scale Up of Bench Applications
    The objective of this potential Topic Area is to reduce scale up risk of a biofuel and bioproduct process by focusing on the scaling of one or two individual unit operations. This R&D on scaling is expected to advance the technology from lab-scale to engineering-scale unit operations.

  2. Waste to Energy Strategies for the Bioeconomy
    The objective of this potential Topic Area is to advance the Bioeconomy by addressing several ways to use materials that are currently “waste” to make new products; reduce net energy consumption by preprocessing of waste feedstocks; convert wet wastes, such as food waste, to energy at community-scale; and integrate algae biomass technologies with municipal waste water treatment.

  3. Algae Bioproducts and CO2 Direct-Air-Capture and Efficiency
    The objective of this potential Topic Area is to lower the cost of algal biofuels through increased algae product value and/or yields. This will be done by overcoming challenges at the interface between the production and processing of algal biomass through improving carbon efficiency by increasing carbon utilization in the system, and/or by employing direct air capture technologies.

  4. Bio-Restore: Biomass to Restore Natural Resources
    The objective of this potential Topic Area is to develop new methods to quantify the environmental and economic benefits associated with growing energy crops, with a focus on restoring water quality and soil health.

  5. Efficient Wood Heaters
    The objective of this potential Topic Area is to support the development and testing of low-emission, high efficiency residential wood heaters.

  6. Biopower and Products from Urban and Suburban Wastes: North American Multi-University Partnership for Research and Education
    The objective of this potential Topic Area is to establish projects led by U.S. universities in partnership with both Canadian and Mexican universities to develop innovative technologies to manage major forms of urban and suburban waste, with a focus on using plastic waste to make products and using wastes to produce low-cost biopower.

EERE envisions awarding multiple financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements.  The estimated period of performance for each award will be approximately 2-5 years.

EERE is issuing this notice so that interested parties are aware of the intent to issue a FOA in the near term. All of the information contained in this Notice is subject to change. EERE will not respond to questions concerning this Notice. Once the FOA has been released, EERE will provide an avenue for potential Applicants to submit questions.

EERE plans to issue the FOA in January 2020 via the EERE Exchange website https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/. Applicants who wish to receive official notifications and information from EERE regarding this FOA should register in EERE Exchange. After FOA release, EERE will accept applications only through EERE Exchange.

In anticipation of FOA release, EERE advises Applicants to complete the following steps, which are required for application submission:

Register and create an account in EERE Exchange at https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/.  This account will allow the user to register for any open EERE FOAs that are currently in EERE Exchange. EERE recommends that each organization or business unit, whether acting as a team or a single entity, use only one account as the contact point for each submission.

Applicants should submit questions related to the registration process and use of the EERE Exchange website to:  EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov

  • Register in Grants.gov to receive automatic updates when Amendments to a FOA are posted.  However, please note that applications will not be accepted through Grants.gov.  http://www.grants.gov/.  All applications must be submitted through EERE Exchange.