The $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund competition will fund 2–3 national nonprofits that will partner with private capital providers to deliver financing at scale to businesses, communities, community lenders, and others, catalyzing tens of thousands of clean technology projects to accelerate our progress towards energy independence and a net-zero economic future.

EPA intends to implement this competition structure to maximize impact toward the three GGRF program objectives. While this competition description contains a broader set of expected competition details, below is a brief summary of the competition structure.

• Amount of Funding: $13.97 billion, with $11.97 billion from Section 134(a)(2) of the Clean Air Act as well as $2 billion from Section 134(a)(3) that must be expended in low income and disadvantaged communities.
• Number of Awards: 2–3 awards.
• Types of Applicants: Applicants must be “eligible recipients,” submitting applications either as individuals or as lead applicants in coalitions; applicants are permitted to participate in multiple applications within this competition as well as across GGRF competitions.
• Application Components: Applicants will each submit a program plan, which articulates the applicant’s plan to use grant funds to advance GGRF program objectives, and an organizational plan, which describes the applicant’s organizational capacity to execute that plan.
• Grant Activities: Grantees will provide financial products and supporting predevelopment expenditures to qualified projects, implementing Section 134(b)(1) that authorizes funding for “direct investments.”
• Types of Projects: Grantees will support deployment of qualified projects.
• Transparency: Grantees will be subject to robust program-level and institution-level reporting requirements, in addition to each applicant submitting governance and risk management plans.
• Justice40: Grantees will be expected to ensure that, in line with the Justice40 Initiative, 40% of benefits from this competition flow to disadvantaged communities.

EPA is not currently accepting applications for this competition. This competition description is intended to provide prospective applicants with information on potential application components and grant requirements, but this description does not supersede the text in the NOFO that will be posted on Grants.gov pursuant to 2 CFR § 200.204.

Prospective applicants should note that EPA intends to publish the NOFO as early as June 2023 to formally request applications.