The Building Technologies Office (BTO) aims to decarbonize the building stock by making suitable technologies that exist today more accessible to all communities and addressing gaps where building decarbonization will require new innovations. Current technologies can decarbonize most of the building stock by 2050, while new technologies can speed the decarbonization of significant building segments and ensure emissions reductions also reduce customer energy burdens. The application of energy and power efficiency principles to the design and engineering of buildings and appliances ensures that decarbonization is maximally cost effective.

The long-term investments this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) makes will reduce cost and enhance viability of building decarbonization with R&D, identify remaining needs with timely demonstrations, and increase the quality of life for building occupants through the commercialization of cutting-edge, clean technologies. Specifically, this FOA will support the development, validation, and demonstration of novel building technologies and retrofit practices in high-priority technology areas including air conditioning, space heating, water heating, and building envelopes. The FOA has the joint priority of making buildings more resilient, providing benefits to grid operators during periods of peak electricity demand and building occupants during grid outages and extreme weather events. Technologies developed in this FOA may also increase the viability and deployment of renewable energy technologies at scale by avoiding common triggers for costly upgrades, such as the need to trench new wiring to homes or increase the capacity of transformers or electrical load centers.

The 2024 BENEFIT FOA supports the Affordable Home Energy Shot, one of eight Energy Earthshot initiatives DOE has launched. The Affordable Home Energy Shot calls for innovations in building upgrades, efficient electrification, and smart controls that reduce the cost of decarbonizing affordable housing by at least 50% while lowering residents’ energy bill by at least 20% within a decade. Topics in the FOA call for innovations in each of these three pillars, and together provide whole-home, integrated solutions for the equitable decarbonization of affordable housing units. This includes investments in affordable envelope retrofits, HVAC cost reductions, and technologies that make building electrification more viable without costly infrastructure upgrades. Projects selected in this FOA will engage key building partners—including federal, state, and local governments, community groups, affordable housing providers, industry, and home energy practitioners—to advance the goals of the Affordable Home Energy Shot.

BTO has issued the BENEFIT FOA on a regular basis since 2014. The 2024 BENEFIT FOA will invest up to $30M (subject to appropriations) across four topic areas:

• Topic 1: Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning and Water Heating: Technologies with improved materials, components, equipment design, and engineering, lower cost manufacturing processes, and easier installation.
• Topic 2: Innovative, Replicable, and Low-Cost Roof and Attic Retrofits: Technologies for affordable and scalable roof and attic retrofits that improve energy efficiency and address air and water infiltration.
• Topic 3: Building Resilience and Capacity Constraints: Novel approaches to maintain essential loads during blackouts and add power capacity to buildings without the need for major infrastructure upgrades; localized thermal management systems and thermally resilient building envelopes to provide cooling and overheating protection against extreme heat events.
• Topic 4: Commercial Lighting Retrofit Advancements: Low-cost, high-quality retrofit solutions for lagging sectors in energy-efficient lighting adoption (schools, certain commercial buildings).

The 2024 BENEFIT FOA permits a broad range of applications, which will help BTO to select the highest-impact awards and fulfill the most important needs for innovation. Applicants to this FOA may consider including field validation as part of their approach to verify technologies and integration practices or identify gaps in design and in-field performance.