The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) is issuing this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to support a portfolio of projects that demonstrate and validate reliable operations and financial value from a range of grid topologies with diverse energy resources and distributed energy systems (DES) ownership models.

In this FOA, OCED is seeking projects that can demonstrate that aggregated and coordinated distributed energy resources (DERs) can provide reliable, predictable grid services for a wide range of system configurations. The program goal is to build confidence that the design, control, and compensation approaches developed can be readily applied to other portions of the distribution grid and extended to other mixes of DERs, potentially extending the value of this approach to a more diverse set of communities, individuals, and entities as the distribution system continues to change.

This FOA makes available approximately $50 million in federal funds for transformative, at-scale projects within distribution systems that demonstrate approaches to integrate grid-edge renewable and distributed energy systems with broader energy networks. DOE will fund up to four (4) projects with an award size of at least $10 million and no more than $25 million in federal funds. Each award is required to provide a minimum of 50% non-federal cost share. Projects are anticipated to have a maximum period of performance of 8 years.

This investment will allow the U.S. to develop more reliable, resilient, and cost-effective distribution grids and distributed energy systems while supporting climate action and providing benefits to communities and workers. It will also support the Biden Administration’s decarbonization goals of a 50-52% reduction in GHG emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, a carbon-pollution-free power sector by 2035, and a net-zero GHG emissions economy by 2050.

This FOA has one Topic Area: Distributed Energy Systems Demonstrations.

Objectives:

In this FOA, OCED intends to fund transformative at-scale projects within distribution systems that demonstrate reliable grid operations using higher contributions from DERs than has been previously demonstrated, and in doing so, projects should accomplish the maximum practicable number of the following objectives:

• Demonstrate reliable operations and financial value of distribution grids that leverage high levels of variable renewable generation and flexible load assets to the distribution grid operators and endusers.
• Demonstrate interoperability and coordinated control of generation, grid, storage, transportation, industrial and/or building energy systems.
• Demonstrate reliable grid service provision from diverse DER mixes and grid configurations.
• Support the development of best practices for planning, execution, and operation of similar projects. Ensure sharing of best practices and key learnings on grid reliability at high levels of penetration utilizing diverse asset mixes with system operators to ensure replicability and extensibility of control approaches.
• Share electricity usage and system performance data with relevant communities (geographic communities and communities of practice) to accelerate adoption and replication of successful solutions.
• Integrate with and expand grid operator training programs.
• Accelerate the incorporation of these solutions into utility planning processes.
• Reduce the cost of capital for implementation of similar, subsequent projects.
• Reduce barriers to participation and access to grid service financial value for a diverse group of energy asset owners and DACs.
• Engage in providing grid services to Independent System Operators/Regional Transmission Organizations (ISO/RTO) through FERC Order 2222.

Only applicants that have submitted an eligible Concept Paper will be eligible to submit a Full Application.