This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is jointly issued by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) and Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) as part of their Interconnection Innovation Exchange (i2X) program1 to support innovative work to enable simpler, faster, and fairer interconnection of clean energy resources while enhancing the reliability, resiliency, and security of our electrical grid.

The two FOA topic areas are as follows:

• Topic Area 1: Improved Efficiency of EMT Simulations for Interconnection Studies of IBRs Projects in this topic area will seek to improve the efficiency of the interconnection study process for new IBRs, such as solar and wind plants and battery energy storage systems, by improving software tools to study plant dynamics to increase long-term plant reliability. Projects will achieve this both by improving the speed of advanced, high-fidelity EMT modeling and simulation tools used in power systems interconnection studies and by developing a better understanding of when such high-fidelity simulations are necessary in the interconnection process.
• Topic Area 2: Dynamic Stability-Enhanced Network Assessment Tools Projects in this topic area will develop tools to provide stakeholders with data on transmission system characteristics related to stability, voltage, and grid strength while securing confidential and critical energy infrastructure information. Projects will establish the type of information required by stakeholders, develop a tool or tools, and test and evaluate those tools on at least one real transmission system.

Topic Area 1 is primarily focused on the improvement of software tools, methods, or processes used to conduct EMT studies, the results of which will inform the transmission system interconnection stakeholders in Topic Area 2. Projects in Topic Area 2 do not need to be focused solely on transmission system characteristics based on EMT studies.