Okay. Hello everyone. Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Andrew Graves, I'm the Technology Manager with the Solar Energy Technologies Office at the Department of Energy. And I'll be walking you through this webinar today. Thanks for everyone for joining.

I'm going to start off with this disclaimer that this webinar is being recorded and will be published on the EERE Exchange website. If you don't wish to have your voice recorded, please do not speak; do not wish to have your image recorded, please turn off your camera. If you speak during the call or use the video connection, you are presumed to consent to recording and use your voice or image. I don't think this is an issue anyway for this webinar. I don't think we'll have the opportunity to speak, unfortunately, we'll have to use the chat function to submit questions during the chat, but regardless this is just a disclaimer that we have to start off with

Okay, so welcome again. This webinar will provide information on the SolSmart Program Management. This is FOA # 2513. Yeah.

This webinar will provide an overview of the Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office and the recently announced FY21 Funding Opportunity for the SolSmart Program Management. All applicants are strongly encouraged to read the entire co-op and adhere to the stated submission requirements. This presentation simply summarizing the contents of the FOA. No new information will be discussed during this webinar. There are no particular advantages to listening to this webinar with respect uh to being able to respond to the FOA. Your participation is voluntary. If there are any inconsistencies between the FOA and this presentation or statements made by DOE personnel. The FOA is the controlling document and applicants should rely on the FOA language and seek clarification from EERE by submitting questions to our email address. SolSmart.FOA@ee.doe.gov. As I mentioned, please use the chat feature of the Webex to submit any questions or reach out directly to the email address that I had identified previously. And we'll post all answers to FOA related questions on Exchange so that everyone has equal access to the information. So again submit questions through the chat feature and we'll not answer them here, but we we'll post all answers on Exchange so you can check back in and see the answers to your questions there.

So, this is the anticipated schedule for the FOA. It's already been issued, it was published on May 4th. This is the informational Webinar which is today, the 18th. The Letters of Intent will be due June 8th. The Concept Papers will be due June 15th. And Full Applications will be due August 17th. We expect to make award notifications in October and negotiate awards between the October and December time frame. Please note that all submissions are due at 5:00 PM Eastern Time on the date listed.

This will be the agenda for today's meeting. We'll talk about the description of the FOA. The topic area of interest. We'll talk about the Teaming List that we're going to set up. The importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in this FOA. We'll go over the award information. Talk about substantial involvement. Go through the FOA timeline. And then discuss what's expected for Concept Papers, Full Applications and what's involved in the Merit Review and Selection Process and the registration requirement.

So over the next few slides, we'll talk a little bit more about this funding opportunity and the important elements of the FOA.

So we are issuing this funding opportunity to support local government efforts to reduce the cost of solar in their communities, stimulates local solar market development, and reach local decarbonization and clean energy goals.

Building an clean and equitable energy economy and addressing the climate crisis are the top priorities 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 activities under this FOA will support the government-wide approach to the climate crisis by driving the innovation that can lead to the deployment of clean energy technologies, which are critical for our climate protection. Specifically, this FOA will help to reduce the soft costs of solar energy deployment - the soft costs are those costs not associated with hardware - which accounts for up to 64% of the up-front costs of a residential solar installation.

So more specifically, this FOA seeks an entity to manage and expand DOE's SolSmart Program, which supports and recognizes local governments that reduce soft costs and expand access to solar energy. The current SolSmart DOE award is coming to an end, and SETO is looking for an entity to manage the SolSmart Program the next five years, expand the program to incorporate new solar-related technologies as an emphasis on underserved communities, and respond to the evolving needs of local governments. We'll talk about each one of those in more detail in a moment, but more information about the current SolSmart Program is available at the website SolSmart.org.

So the successful applicant will bring together the partners needed to execute all aspects of the project, including: program management, technical assistance, designation of SolSmart communities, and program evaluation and tracking. We'll provide... or more information about each of these is provided in the FOA document. We strongly encourage applicants to update the SolSmart Program in the areas listed below: "Solar Plus" Technologies and Applications, Ground-Mounted Solar, Regional Collaboration, Ongoing Engagement with Designees, Regular Evaluation and Improvement, Improving Program Cost-Effectiveness, Leveraging the Results of Other SETO Programs. Again, more information about each of these areas is included in the FOA document, but I certainly encourage everybody to take a look at the details of each one of these subtopic areas.

As far as supporting underserved communities there's special emphasis on that within this FOA. Applicants must propose ways for the SolSmart Program to support underserved communities and achieving SolSmart designation and take steps to ensure the program facilitate the adoption of solar energy in a diverse range of jurisdictions such as rural areas, tribal lands, and low and moderate income communities and neighborhoods. SolSmart must incorporate metrics that will ensure that technical assistance is provided to underserved communities and jurisdictions to the benefit the most from the program's support.

Applications that fall outside of these technical parameters as specified in the FOA will be deemed nonresponsive and we we'll not review or consider applications that are nonresponsive.

Okay, now let's talk a little bit about Teaming Partner list. To facilitate the formation of new project teams for the FOA, we are creating a Teaming Partner List available on the website, listed on the slide, on the EERE Exchange here. To any organization that would like to be included on this list of Potential Teaming Partners should submit their information to SolSmart.FOA@ee.doe.gov. But please note that by submitting this information, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. And by facilitating this Teaming List, we do not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of any of the entities that determined to self-identify themselves for placement on the list. We will updated the list about every week or so. So if you'd like to be included on that list, please, send the information that's described in the FOA to the email address shown here and we'll add to the list and then other entities may contact you to be partners on an application for this FOA.

So the note about diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is the policy of the Biden Administration that the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persisting poverty and inequality. Affirmatively advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our Government.

This FOA seeks to encourage the participation of underserved communities and underrepresented groups, applicants are highly encouraged to include individuals from groups historically underrepresented in STEM on their project teams. Applicants are, also, required to submit a DEI Plan that describes the actions the applicant will take to foster a welcoming and inclusive environment, support people from underrepresented communities in STEM, advance equity, encouraged inclusion of individuals from those groups in the project; and the extent the project activities will be located in or benefit underserved communities. The plan should, also, include specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related - SMART - milestones supported by metrics to measure the success of the proposed actions. This plan will be evaluated as part of the technical review process. So, more information about the DEI Plan and requirements are in this section of the FOA and identified here. You can also identify in the table of contents.

Okay, now moving on to award information. So EERE expects to award approximately 8 to $10 million as part of this award and it's expected to be one award and it will be a cooperative agreement. The period of performance will be 60 months and we are encouraging, but not requiring cost share. We'll now discuss the concept of cooperative agreements which involves substantial involvement. So EERE has substantial involvement in work performed under cooperative agreements. We have not limit our involvement to the administrative requirements of the award. Instead, we have substantial involvement in the direction and redirection of the technical aspects of the project. So this includes, but is not limited to: We share responsibility with the Recipient for the management, control, direction, and performance of the Project. We may intervene in the conduct or performance of work under this award programmatic reasons. We may redirect or discontinue funding for the Project based on the outcome of our evaluation of the Project's Go/No-go decision points for milestones. And we participate in major project making decision processes.

This is the FOA timeline that we expect to follow as I already mentioned, I believe, in the beginning. But again, the Letters of Intent are due on June 8th. Concept Papers, June 15th. Full Applications, August 17th. And we expect notifications in October. And again, please note that the deadline is always 5:00 PM Eastern Time on the day it's listed. It's also important that we encourage applicants to submit their documents beforehand; at least 48 hours in advance of the deadline in the event of any technical glitches or sometimes the system can get overloaded if too many people are trying to upload their documents all at the same time, that creates problems. So please try to upload your application materials as quickly as possible. That 48 hours in advance of this mission deadline is the recommendation that we provide.

All right. So first I'll talk about Letters of Intent. Letters of Intent - or LOIs - are required to be eligible to submit a Concept Paper and Full Application for this FOA. Your LOI must comply with the content and form requirements found in that section of the FOA. You must enter all the required information and click the "Create Submission" button in Exchange by the deadline stated in the FOA. The LOI should not contain proprietary or sensitive information. And we will not provide notification of eligibility for Letters of Intent. So these are important, because we use the Letters of Intent to prepare ourselves, to known in advane of how many applications we expect to receive and then to get the appropriate reviewers lined out to review the Concept Papers and then the Full Applications as we receive them.

So after the Letters of Intent, all applicants will be required to submit a Concept Paper. You can see in the FOA what information should be included in the Concept Paper, including the page limits. Again, they must be submitted by June 15th and we will provide, applicants with an "encouraged" or "discouraged" notification and the reviewer comments. So in this case, a "discouraged" notification would convey our lack of programmatic interest in the proposed project. Now, an applicant who receives a "discouraged" notification may still submit a Full Application, but this is our way signaling that disinterest in advance so people can potentially save themselves time in thinking about whether or not they want to submit a Full Application.

A note about how we will review the Concept Papers. There'll be one criterion which will be the Overall FOA Responsiveness and Viability of the Project. So this criterion involves consideration of the following factors:

Whether or not the applicant has described the proposed program, describes how the technology or program is unique and innovative, how the program will advance the state of the art. Whether or not the applicant has identified risks and challenges, including possible mitigation strategies. And then what the impact of the EERE funding would be. We'll also be looking for whether or not the Applicant has qualifications, experience, capabilities, and the resources necessary to complete the proposed project. And if the project is successfully accomplished, whether or not the project would meet the objectives as described in the FOA.

So this is all the other material that will be included in a Full Application: The Technical Volume, the SF-424 Application for Federal Assistance, Budget & Subrecipient Budget Justifications, the Summary for Public Release, Summary Slide for your project, your Statement of Project Objectives, development Resumes, Letters of Commitment, your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan, and other administrative documents. So please review this section of the FOA, which goes over each of these documents and make sure you are fully familiar with all the documents that are required for your submission so that you can meet all of the application submission deadlines.

For the Full Application. Again, qualifications should be no more than 15 pages. And this is an approximate breakdown of how we would recommend you divide those 15 pages. So a cover page and then a Project Overview section with about 10% of the Technical Volume. A Technical Description, Innovation and Impact section with about 30%. Your Work Plan with about 40%. Your Technical Qualifications and Resources for about the final 20%. And then the Appendices with Letters of Commitment, resumes, etcetera.

Again, all Full Applications will be due by August 17th and applications will be considered eligible if they are an eligible entity. See Section III.A of the FOA. If you submitted an eligible Concept Paper which would require also submitting an eligible letter of intent, your application's compliant see Section III.C. And proposed project is responsive to the FOA as described in Section III.D.

So who is eligible to apply?

Eligible Applicants for this FOA include: US citizens and lawful residents. For profit entities. Educational institutions. Nonprofits. State, local, and tribal entities. DOE/Federally Funded Research and Development Centers.

An entity may submit more than one Concept Paper and Full Application, provided that each application describes a unique, scientific distinct project and you provide an eligible Concept Paper for each application that you submitted a Full Application.

Okay. So the Merit Review and the Selection Process for Full Applications. This will consist of multiple phases that include an eligibility review and a thorough technical review. Will have rigorous technical reviews that are conducted by external reviewers who are subject matter experts. And ultimately, the Selection Official will consider these recommendations from the reviewers, along with other considerations such as the program policy factors, to make final selection decisions and I'll talk about those in a minute.

The criteria that will be used for the qualifications will be four criteria: Number 1 will be Technical Merit, Innovation and Impact at 45%; that includes obviously the Technical Merit and the Impact on proposed technology or program. Criterion 2 will be the Project Research Plan at 30%; so that's essentially how you describe your Research Approach, Workplan, as well as the SOPO, how risks are identified and the metrics deliverables to the proposed, etcetera. Criterion 3, at 15%, will be the Team and Resources of the application. And Criterion 4, at 10%, will be the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan.

So the Selection Official may consider the recommendations from the Merit Reviewers, the program policy factors, and the amount of funds available before arriving at a selection decision.

The Program Policy Factors, as I mentioned earlier, are the additional set of factors that the Selection Official is allowed to consider. And these are the degree to which the proposed project exhibits programmatic diversity when compared to other projects in our portfolio. The degree to which the project optimizing... 

[Interference]

Can somebody mute their phone? [Inaudible] ... Outside of the use of available funding, the level of industry involvement in the program. The degree to which the proposed project is likely to lead to increase employment in manufacturing in the United States. The degree to which the proposed project represents a desired geographic diversity. Or the degree to which the proposed project has team member diversity with participants, including, but not limited to those from minority serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Other Minority Institutions, or members from Qualified Opportunity Zones. Again, these are just the general program Policy factors that can be used by any Selection Official in our funding opportunity process.

Okay, Registration Requirements. There are several one time actions that applicants must take before submitting an application response to this FOA. It is vital that applicants address these items as soon as possible as some may take several weeks to complete. Applicants must follow the instructions for each of these systems as described in Section VI.B of the FOA. Please look at that section. You'll see more information on how to register for each of these systems or processes,  including creating a Control Number in Exchange, obtaining a DUNS Number, registering in SAM - the System for Award Management, and registering with FedConnect, and Grants.gov. So it's very important. Please review this section of the FOA and make sure you have an understanding of all the different numbers and registrations that you'll need to apply to the FOA.

Okay. Means of Submission. All application documents must be submitted through the Funding Opportunity Exchange website at the website listed here. We will not review or consider applications that are submitted outside of this system. Please check out the User Guides on the EERE Exchange website for how to use the system if you have any questions. There's, also, manuals on that web page as well.

Key Submission Points. Please make sure that you check the Exchange system and that you have a point of contact in the program. We encourage applicants to submit one or two days prior to the deadline to allow for full upload of application documents. I mentioned that, earlier, there are sometimes technical glitches that delay people from being able to upload their documents. So that tradition has helped if everybody works towards submitting their applications one or two days prior to the deadline. Also, make sure that you hit the "Submit" button. Any changes that you make after you submit will unsubmit your application and you will need to go back in and summit your application again. Please make sure that you do that. Then we recommend that you print out the confirmation page at each step and that contains your application's Control Number as a record that you have successfully completed that step. Okay, so again, just please keep all this information in mind. If anyone submits information that is in complete, your application may be deemed ineligible and it might not be reviewed.

Also, please make sure that you designate a Technical and Business point-of-contact in Exchange who we will communicate with through the award process. It is imperative that this person be responsible during the award negotiations and meet negotiation deadlines. Failure to do so may result in the cancellation of further award negotiations and recission of the Selection.

Okay, questions about the FOA. Again, as I mentioned, you can add questions to the chat function here or you can email the email address SolSmart.FOA@ee.doe.gov. And we'll take all questions received either way and then post them to the landing page on Exchange for this FOA. It'll be a spreadsheet document that you'll be able to look at and then everybody will have access to the same responses and information. We're attempt to respond within three business days. Also very important, if you have problems logging into or uploading or submitting documents on Exchange, there's a different website to reach out to their technical problems with the Exchange system. Please reach out to this website. They can help you with any problems you encounter on the technical side of the Exchange system. Make sure you always include the FOA name and the number in the subject line, so they know what you're talking about. And then again, as I mentioned, any questions during this presentation we'll work to post them on the Exchange landing page.

And I believe that that is done. So that concludes this presentation, thank you so much for your participation and your attention. And we look forward to seeing the submissions that come in. Thank you so much and have a great day.