EERE Funding Opportunity Announcements

In recent years a growing number of utilities responsible for clean water have been moving from strict wastewater treatment to water resource management, some formally renaming themselves as water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs). Energy efficiency in equipment, processes, and operations is a fundamental part of this transition, and energy savings in facility retrofits can reach 50 percent. In addition to energy efficiency improvements, wastewater contains about five times more energy than is needed for its treatment, creating an opportunity for new, innovative technologies and approaches to recovering that energy content.

Looking even more broadly than municipal wastewater treatment facilities - across the entire energy-water nexus - water and wastewater contain a significant amount of recoverable chemical, thermal, and hydrodynamic energy content. Treatment efficiencies and energy recovery options across the energy-water nexus create the possibility for a growing percentage of treated water and wastewater systems in municipal, industrial, agriculture, utility, oil and gas and other sectors to achieve net-zero energy consumption, and even to become net producers of energy under favorable circumstances.

Energy is often the second-highest operating cost (behind labor costs) for water and wastewater treatment systems. Black & Veatch’s client surveys indicate that energy costs at water and wastewater utilities account for well over 10% of total operating costs for a large majority of utilities, with a significant number of utilities having energy costs that exceed 30 percent. Increasingly stringent regulations for contaminants are pushing water and wastewater treatment systems to use even more advanced – and energy intensive – treatment technologies. The energy use of these systems is expected to increase by up to 20 percent in the coming decades due to more stringent water quality standards and growing water demand based on population growth. Additionally, water and wastewater treatment facilities, pipes, and related infrastructure in cities around the country are approaching their end of expected service life. Therefore, a unique window of opportunity exists to replace the aging infrastructure with new, innovative approaches to water and wastewater treatment, resource recovery, and water reuse by looking more broadly at interconnected, cross-sector opportunities (i.e. municipal, industrial, agriculture, oil and gas, etc.) across the energy-water nexus to develop water and wastewater treatment systems of the future – advanced water resource recovery systems.
The goal of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to conduct research, development, and deployment on technology innovations that enable advanced water resource recovery systems. Topic Area 1 of this FOA seeks to advance the development of transformative technologies beyond early stage research and development (R&D) to become pilot ready (TRL 4-6). Whereas, Topic Area 2 of this FOA seeks to test currently developed, pilot ready technologies (TRL 6-7) though design, build, and operations in industrially relevant conditions to enable commercialization.

This FOA is being issued by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) as part of the DOE’s Water Security Grand Challenge (WSGC). The WSGC is a White House initiated, U.S. DOE led framework to advance transformational technology and innovation to meet the global need for safe, secure, and affordable water. Using a coordinated suite of prizes, competitions, R&D, and other programs, the Water Security Grand Challenge has set the following goals for the United States to reach by 2030:

As part of the WSGC, DOE announced a $1 million Water Resource Recovery Prize to accelerate resource recovery from municipal wastewater across the United States. DOE also announced the selection of the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) to lead DOE’s Energy-Water Desalination Hub, an early stage R&D consortia focused on desalination technologies. This FOA seeks to leverage these investments to further develop technologies for advanced water resource recovery systems.

Questions regarding the FOA must be submitted to AMOWaterFOA@ee.doe.gov

Answers to the questions will be posted to an excel spreadsheet found in the annoucement Documents section of the FOA posting.

EERE Exchange is designed to enforce the deadlines specified in this FOA. The “Apply” and “Submit” buttons will automatically disable at the defined submission deadlines. Should applicants experience problems with EERE Exchange, the following information may be helpful.

Applicants that experience issues with submission PRIOR to the FOA deadline: In the event that an applicant experiences technical difficulties with a submission, the applicant should contact the EERE Exchange helpdesk for assistance (EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov). The EERE Exchange helpdesk and/or the EERE Exchange system administrators will assist applicants in resolving issues.

Applicants that experience issues with submissions that result in late submissions: In the event that an applicant experiences technical difficulties so severe that they are unable to submit their application by the deadline, the applicant should contact the EERE Exchange helpdesk for assistance (EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov). The EERE Exchange helpdesk and/or the EERE Exchange system administrators will assist the applicant in resolving all issues (including finalizing submission on behalf of and with the applicant’s concurrence). Please note, network traffic is at its heaviest during the final hours and minutes prior to submittal deadline. Applicants who experience this during the final hours or minutes and are unsuccessful in uploading documents will not be able to use this process.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), invests in cutting-edge research, development, and demonstration activities focused on sustainable transportation, renewable power, and energy efficiency. Through EERE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) public-private R&D consortia, manufacturers, small businesses, universities, national laboratories, and state and local governments are brought together to pursue coordinated early-stage R&D in high-priority areas essential to energy in manufacturing. Federal funding is the catalyst to bring stakeholders into shared spaces and to address process and technological challenges that present a significant degree of scientific or technical uncertainty.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to establish an Energy Innovation Hub (referred to hereafter as the Energy-Water Desalination Hub, or the Hub) to address water security issues in the U.S. For the purpose of this FOA, “desalination” more broadly includes technologies that primarily remove salts. The Hub is a critical component of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) broader Water Security Grand Challenge which will use a coordinated suite of prizes, competitions, early stage research and development (R&D), and other programs to help address the nation’s water security needs.

The Energy-Water Desalination Hub will be organized around four topic areas: 1) Materials Research and Development, 2) New Process Research and Development, 3) Modeling and Simulation Tools, and 4) Integrated Data and Analysis. DOE intends to select and fund one application with the greatest likelihood of achieving the goals of all four topics of this FOA.

Please carefully review the complete Funding Opportunity Announcement, which can be accessed under the "DOCUMENTS" heading below.

Please click "FOA FAQs" under the "DOCUMENTS" heading below for Questions and Answers specific to this FOA.

Applicants that experience issues with submissions PRIOR to the FOA Deadline: The Exchange system is currently designed to enforce hard deadlines for Full Application submissions. The APPLY and SUBMIT buttons automatically disable at the defined submission deadlines. The intention of this design is to consistently enforce a standard deadline for all applications. In the event that an Applicant experiences technical difficulties with a submission, the Applicant should contact the Exchange helpdesk for assistance (EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov ).

Informational Webinar: The Informational Webinar mentioned in the FOA will be held on January 7, 2019 at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Attendance is not mandatory and will not positively or negatively impact the overall review of any Applicant submissions. Standard application questions regarding the EERE Office and FOA procedures will be discussed. No new information will be presented during the webinar and EERE will not answer any attendee questions during the webinar.

After the webinar is complete, a link will be provided to access the audio recording of the webinar. Also, a copy of the Webinar Slides and Webinar Transcript will be available to download in the “DOCUMENTS” section below.

Please click here to register for the webinar.

*UPDATE: Please see the link below for the Informational Webinar held on January 7, 2019 and enter this password: ZyM3H8Yg

https://doe.webex.com/doe/lsr.php?RCID=cb6bea419f25703c5b37a6f66c993868

Please see the Announcement Documents section for a copy of the webinar slides and transcript.

The purpose of this Notice is to provide potential applicants advance notice that the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), on behalf of the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), intends to issue Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0001905 entitled "Energy-Water Desalination Hub".

This FOA will support the establishment of an Energy Innovation Hub in the area of Energy-Water Desalination (referred to as the “Hub”) to accelerate transformational advances in science and engineering focused on reducing the energy and cost requirements of desalination to provide clean and safe water. The Hub will include highly collaborative research teams, spanning multiple scientific, engineering, and where appropriate, economic and public policy disciplines. By bringing together top talent from across the full spectrum of research and development (R&D) performers—including universities, private industry, non-profits, and National Laboratories—the Hub will serve as the world-leading R&D center in Energy-Water Desalination.

THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT (NOI) ONLY. This Notice is issued so that interested parties are aware of the EERE’s intention to issue this FOA in the near term. All of the information contained in this Notice is subject to change. EERE may issue a FOA as described herein, may issue a FOA that is significantly different from the FOA described herein, or EERE may not issue a FOA at all.

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.

Prospective applicants to the FOA should begin developing partnerships, formulating ideas, and gathering data in anticipation of the issuance of this FOA. It is anticipated that this FOA will be posted to EERE Exchange in July 2018.

Please review the full Notice of Intent, which can be accessed under the "Documents" heading below.