EERE eXCHANGE: FAQs

Question 1: Where can I access the slides following this webinar?
Answer 1: The webinar slides will be posted on the EERE Exchange website.

Question 2: Does the project management expect significant overlap between the FOA winner and NOAA responsibilities?
Answer 2: Please see APPENDIX G – NOAA AND NATIONAL LAB’S ROLES: RESEARCH AREAS in the FOA for further information on the support roles of the National Labs and NOAA.

Question 3: Can you say anything about boundaries of where NOAA's role ends and the FOA winner role begins with respect to modeling activities?
Answer 3: The recipient will not work on the NOAA HRRR model but will work on the WRF model in conjunction with NOAA. The reason is that it is an open source model and the project results are meant to be shared. Thus the team of DOE labs, FOA awardee and NOAA can work together on understanding and modeling of physical phenomena mentioned within the FOA. The work related to modeling for a particular company’s wind plants is a private industry role.

Question 4: Is any of the DOE-provided equipment currently committed to field campaigns that may conflict with this project?
Answer 4: No. All the mentioned equipment listed in the table will be available when the field project begins.

Question 5: Can you confirm that FFRDCs should not engage in any conversations or contact regarding this FOA?
Answer 5: Yes. As stated in Section I.A. of the FOA, applicants should not contact any of the FFRDC’s during the application process.

Question 6: Can you elaborate on the expectations for the Decision Support System?
Answer 6:

If it is a Decision Support System that applies directly to improving the foundational models, interpreting model findings, or showing more clearly how those findings benefit the nation then that is a government function; DOE’s and NOAA’s role. If it is a Decision Support Tool for a particular company’s product or wind farm, that is their role. We all might be able to work together on the understanding of the physical processes and phenomena behind the new decision support tools.

The development of the Decision Support System is primarily at the discretion of the FOA applicant. Recognizing that private industry plays a significant role in developing tailored tools and products to inform wind forecasting for specific wind plants, DOE and its partners are looking for the FOA awardee to help develop high-level tools, methods or other useful products that are more broadly applicable. Ideally, these Decision Support Systems will provide informed decision-making by Balancing Authorities with respect to wind forecasting without infringing on privately space.

Question 7: Will the anticipated location of the DOE-deployed Pacific wind profilers or buoyed-based lidars result in any preferences in the selection of the project study area?
Answer 7:

No, while the Wind Profiling Radars will be located in the states of Washington, Oregon and California, this will not influence selection. Those data can be utilized anywhere within the area diagramed in the FOA webinar slides and described within the FOA document to better the understanding of physical phenomena and processes and better the foundational models for all.

The specific locations for deploying the floating lidar buoys have not been determined by DOE. FOA applicants are encouraged to provide suggested locations for these floating lidar buoys in their proposed project and how they might be used to accomplish the FOA objectives.

Question 8: Many of the features impacting wind forecast skill are occurring at meso-gamma or finer scales. Analysis of these features requires a very targeted field campaign. With this in mind, is a considerably smaller study area acceptable for the field campaign?
Answer 8: As long as it covers the physical processes of interest, the application would be considered.

Question 9: Currently EERE funds WRF model developments that are not yet available in a public, open source version of WRF, but they will likely be available in the future, within a year or two. Can a proposer assume that these developments will be publicly available and propose to extend these new capabilities under this FOA?
Answer 9: The FOA specifies the use of WRF-ARW version 3.5.1 or newer for model development.

Question 10: Section I.B. of the FOA states that, “DOE anticipates data from three (3) new Wind Profiling Radars being placed along the Pacific Coast to be available during the latter portion of the field campaign.” Where will these be located?
Answer 10: DOE has acquired three (3) Wind Profiling Radars for use during the latter portion field campaign and while we are currently evaluating specific locations to deploy these instruments, we do anticipate that they will be evenly spaced, approximately 250 nautical miles apart, along the Oregon and Washington coastline to be consistent with the State of California’s Wind Profiling Radar network. Along with Wind Profiling Radars being deployed in California and currently available in Vancouver Canada, of which neither are owned or operated by DOE, these instruments will create a valuable publically available data collection network and should be considered for use during the field experiment.

Question 11: In reference to DE-FOA-0000984, for the Concept Paper Addendum it states "Applicants may provide graphs, charts, or other data to supplement their Technology Description." For the concept paper, is the expectation that all graphs and charts will be supplied separately in the addendum and the 5 pages of Technology Description will only be text. If graphs/charts are integrated into the Technology Description section (rather than the addendum) is the page limit still set at a maximum of 5 pages?
Answer 11: Yes. Per the FOA in section IV.B.1, the Technology Description is limited to 5 pages maximum. The addendum is given specifically as an option to add graphs, charts, etc. to supplement the Technology Description.

Question 12: Can NCAR be contacted by applicants in preparation for a submission to this FOA or are they considered a FFRDC?
Answer 12: Yes, applicants may contact NCAR in preparation of submission. NCAR is not listed as one of the FFRDC’s that should not be contacted. Please refer to Section I.A for the full list of DOE partners supporting this FOA.

Question 13: Should the concept paper consist of only the Technology Description and Addendum (maximum of 5 pages each)? May we include a title page and brief introduction to the concept paper? Would these be disregarded and/or counted against the page limits for the Technology Description or Addendum?
Answer 13: Yes. As stated in the table in Section IV.C.1 of the FOA, the concept paper should only consist of the Technology Description and Addendum. The content of the Technology Description is up to the applicant but should address the description requirements. Additional information such as a title page and introduction will count as pages and any material over the 5 pages will not be considered.

Question 14: We are submitting as a University and according to the FOA DE FOA 0000984, under section B. Cost Sharing, we are able to apply the reduced cost share requirement of 10% to the total allowable costs for research projects. The statement of eligibility says must be a University AND incur more than 50% of the total project costs. I am interpreting this as we would need to incur costs of the project. Is that correct? If so, then using the 10% plus 50% of the project costs would be a higher contribution than just providing 20% cost share. Or does it mean we provide 10% cost share but must perform at least 50% of the work as the prime. Please clarify if this is a monetary requirement or a performance requirement.
Answer 14:

If the Applicant is a domestic institution of higher education, domestic non-profit entity or state, local, or tribal government and performs more than 50% of the project work, as measured by the Total Project Cost, the Applicant would be eligible to request the reduced cost share of 10%.

Question 15: In reference to DE-FOA-0000984, there is a discrepancy between the subawardee estimated work amount that requires a budget justification form stated on pg. 31 in the FOA ($250,000 or 25%) and the amount stated in the Budget Justification worksheet ($100,000). I have searched for and read several related FAQs but it is still not 100% clear to me. Is it correct that we should ignore the $100,000 threshold in the Excel budget justification form and use the $250,000 threshold stated in the FOA pdf document when determining if a sub-recipient needs a budget justification form? In other words, for sub-recipients with estimated work less than $250,000 but greater than $100,000 do we need to submit a budget justification form?
Answer 15:
Yes, please use the FOA language that states "each subawardee that is expected to perform work estimated to be more than $250,000 or 25 percent of the total work effort" must submit a budget justification. Any subawardee under the $250,000 threshold or less than 25 percent of the total work effort does not need to submit a budget justification.

Question 16: In reference to DE-FOA-0000984, the EERE budget justification xls file states, under the “Contractual” worksheet that sub-recipients under the threshold ($250,000 in this case) may provide the prime recipient with support to justify their budgets in “...any format, and at a minimum should provide what Statement of Project Objectives task(s) are being performed, the purpose/need for the effort, and a basis of the estimated costs that is considered sufficient for DOE evaluation.” Question: Can you please clarify what should be included in the “basis of the estimated costs that is considered sufficient for DOE evaluation”. In other words, what should be included in the estimated costs from our sub-recipients who are under the threshold in order to be deemed "sufficient for DOE evaluation"?
Answer 16:

On the Contractual tab in the EERE 159 Budget Justification Excel document, for each Sub-Recipient under the threshold of $250,000, enter information into the spreadsheet under the column headings lsited: Sub-Recipient Name/Organization; Purpose/Tasks in SOPO; and cost per budget period. An example is given on the form. No other documentation is required at the time for application submission.

Question 17: Question 20 on the Non-FOA related items FAQs had some information regarding form SF-LLL, but could you please confirm that only that only lobbying in connection with this specific FOA needs to be disclosed? Secondly, do team members who will not receive any funds from this award (cost-share only or advisory partners) need to disclose lobbying activities?
Answer 17:
The SF-LLL form should be filled out specific to the application to this FOA. The form is only required for Prime Recipients and Subrecipients; those who are using any funds other than Federal appropriated funds that have been paid or will be paid to any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with your application as stated in Section IV.D.8 of the FOA.

Question 18: Is an employee of Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) that is a faculty employee of the University of Colorado, Boulder eligible to be an Applicant’s subcontractor for this FOA?
Answer 18:
Yes. Although the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) is jointly sponsored by NOAA, they are not involved in the FOA and therefore no conflict of interest exists.

Question 19: Can you please provide the make and model of the following instruments and/or information on the data they provide (parameters, height coverage (if applicable), spatial coverage (if applicable), time resolution, and vertical resolution)? 1. Lidars a. 2 scanning b. 1 doppler c. 2 floating lidar buoys (also, what is the maximum water depth that these can be deployed?) 2. Sodars a. 6 Can you please answer the following question about these instruments? 1. Radiometers – Can you please provide more information on the ECOR Flux module? 2. Anemometers a. Sonic - 13 – how many of these are 2-D vs. 3-D? 3. Sensors a. Energy Balance Bowen Ratio System – Can you please provide more information on this system? 4. Surface weather stations a. 10 – What will these systems be mounted on (i.e., 2 m tripod, 10 m tower)?
Answer 19:

Lidars

a. 2 scanning

One of the systems we plan to deploy will be one that is developed in-house. The other system will be a commercial system that we are in the process of procuring (and as such we cannot answer the particulars of make and model number because the award has not been made).

Generally speaking, the commercial system and the other potential in-house system we are developing are micropulse systems that will not be as sensitive as HRDL. Under similar conditions, we would expect these systems to have 2-4 km range and be able to make measurements through the depth of the boundary layer. Most likely, these systems will have to integrate longer, so we would expect 2-4 second estimates of range resolved, radial wind speed and aerosol backscatter intensity.

b. 1 doppler

NOAA High Resolution Doppler Lidar (HRDL)

Web Page: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/groups/csd3/instruments/hrdl/

Data produced: Range-resolved estimates of line of site wind speed and aerosol backscatter signal strength

Resolution: 2 Hz / 30m range

Coverage: Depends on aerosol concentration - during typical conditions the max range is 4-6km; vertically through the depth of the Boundary layer.

Scanning: Full hemispheric

Example of HRDL data from an experiment of similar operational coverage: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/groups/csd3/measurements/txflux/

c. 2 floating lidar buoys (also, what is the maximum water depth that these can be deployed?)

The lidar buoys are the WindSentinel Resource Assessment Buoy manufactured by AXYS Technologies Inc.

Measurements (all with user-definable averaging intervals from 1 s) include:

Lidar: Vector wind from Vindicator III lidar, user-definable averaging interval, six measurement heights between 30 and 200 m

Cup anemometer for surface wind speed

Directional wave spectrum

Surface barometric pressure

Surface air temperature and humidity

Water temperature

Water velocity profile (to 90 m) via acoustic Doppler profiler

Solar radiation

Water temperature and conductivity profile

The instruments are mounted on a NOMAD buoy. This buoy design is capable of deployment in waters several thousand meters deep.

2. Sodars

a. 6

Two SODARs are Scintec models SFAS and MFAS with antenna heating.

The links are as follows:

• SFAS http://www.scintec.com/english/Web/Scintec/Details/A031010.aspx

• MFAS http://www.scintec.com/english/Web/Scintec/Details/A032010.aspx

One sodar is a Scintec MFAS Doppler sodar. This sodar provides measurements of wind speed and wind direction as a function of height. The spatial coverage is variable depending on conditions, but can range from several hundred meters (in dry environments) to a kilometer (in more humid conditions like Oklahoma City). The time resolution and vertical resolution can be selected by the user, but we have generally done 15 or 30 minute averages and range gates of 10 to 20 m.

Three sodars are custom built and vertically pointing with a height of coverage of 200m. They will measure horizontal wind and the vertical component of the wind speed (turbulence). The time resolution is 15 minutes with a vertical resolution of 5 m. Time resolution is as short as 1 min or less, if desired. They measure both the mean and standard deviation of vertical velocity (and other radial components). The standard deviation of vertical velocity is a measure of turbulence.

Can you please answer the following question about these instruments?

1. Radiometers – Can you please provide more information on the ECOR Flux module?

The ECOR/SEBS system replicates the ECOR/SEBS systems used in ARM at the TWP and NSA sites (see the ARM ECOR and SEBS web sites for more information at http://www.arm.gov/instruments/ecor and http://www.arm.gov/instruments/sebs). The instrumentation is mounted on a tripod (not a tower section as shown on the ARM ECOR web page) and includes a 3D sonic anemometer, H2O/CO2 sensor, net radiometer (shortwave and longwave components), three soil heat flow sensors, three soil moisture sensors, three soil temperature sensors (the latter three for near surface measurements), and a wetness sensor. The electronics for the system are mounted in a weatherproof stainless steel enclosure.

2. Anemometers

a. Sonic - 13 – how many of these are 2-D vs. 3-D?

All sonic anemometers are 3-D.

3. Sensors

a. Energy Balance Bowen Ratio System – Can you please provide more information on this system?

The Energy Balance Bowen Ratio system is the same as those used in the ARM program (see the ARM EBBR web site http://www.arm.gov/instruments/ebbr). The only difference is that it's mounted on two tripods instead of the pipe framework shown in the picture on the web site. Sensible and latent heat flux are calculated based on the energy balance, using gradients of temperature and relative humidity measurement, net radiation, soils measurements ( like the ECOR/SEBS), wind speed and direction, and atmospheric pressure.

4. Surface weather stations

a. 10 – What will these systems be mounted on (i.e., 2 m tripod, 10 m tower)?

The anemometers are mounted at the top of a tripod approximately 3 m tall. The towers include thermometer, hygrometers, and barometers in addition to the anemometers. Some also can be equipped with radiometers.

Anemometer: RM Young model 05106

Barometer: Vaisala model PTB101B

T/RH Sensor: Vaisala model HMP45C

Question 20: The FOA lists 4 DOE radar wind profilers (RWP), but mentions that only 2 may be provided to the project? What number of RWP should proposals plan on incorporating? Also, it does not specify if these RWP are equipped with Radio Acoustic Sounding Systems (RASS). Could you confirm one way or another?
Answer 20:

1) While the FOA does not list any radar wind profilers (RWP) for the project, the FOA does list Wind Profiling Radars (WPR) as potential government furnished equipment for the project. Applicants should assume there will be two 915-MHz wind profiling radars.

2) We plan to include RASS with these two 915-MHz wind profiling radars, but they do make some noise and as such cannot be sited too close to residences or businesses. Depending on the test bed location, it is possible that we would not be able to use the RASS, or we would have to find another site for the WPRs.

Question 21: I have just found out about this opportunity and it is perfect for a research project taking place at our institution. I am hoping that another cycle of this grant will be offered in the very near future.
Answer 21:
At this time, this is the only EERE Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) offering this research opportunity. However, please continue to monitor https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/ for information on current and future FOA’s that you may be interested in.

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