DE-FOA-0002564: Request for Information on Establishing a New Manufacturing Institute | DE FOA 0002564

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002564

DE-FOA-0002564 is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Request for Information (RFI) issued by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), specifically through the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), to gather stakeholder input on the possible creation of a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Institute. The underlying goal is to help U.S. manufacturing reduce greenhouse gas emissions by improving carbon intensity across industrial production, supporting the broader objective of moving the industrial sector toward net zero emissions by 2050. This notice is not a grant competition and not an application process; it is DOE collecting feedback to shape what a future funding opportunity might look like, and DOE may or may not ultimately release a formal Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA).

The RFI is centered on industrial decarbonization, with two main technical focus areas. The first is Electrification of Industrial Process, which includes needs and opportunities related to electrifying manufacturing steps that traditionally rely on fossil fuel heat or other combustion-based energy. DOE is looking for input on the state of technologies that can electrify manufacturing processes, the materials and components that would make electrification more effective or efficient, and the practical challenges of scaling those technologies up and integrating them into real production environments. This also includes interest in life cycle assessment (LCA) tools and methodologies, since measuring true emissions impacts often requires looking beyond on-site energy use to upstream electricity generation, material supply chains, and other indirect factors.

The second major focus is Decarbonization of Metals Manufacturing. Here, DOE is seeking perspectives on technical solutions that could cut emissions in metals production and processing, improvements in alloy performance that could enable lower-carbon manufacturing routes, and strategies to accelerate adoption of new or recently developed technologies. Metals manufacturing is often energy intensive and difficult to decarbonize, so DOE is using this RFI to better understand where the highest-impact technical gaps are, what deployment barriers exist, and what kinds of coordinated research, development, demonstration, and workforce or supply-chain efforts would most effectively move the sector.

The feedback DOE collects is intended to inform whether it should establish what would be its seventh Clean Energy Manufacturing Institute. These Institutes are structured as public-private partnerships that coordinate research and technology development around a defined manufacturing and energy topic. In practice, that means DOE is exploring a collaborative model that can connect industry, universities, national laboratories, state and local governments, and other organizations to speed up innovation, de-risk scale-up, and improve the pathway from R and D to commercial manufacturing deployment.

Participation in the RFI is open and essentially unrestricted, with DOE explicitly inviting input from a broad range of stakeholders, including private sector firms, academia, national labs, non-governmental organizations, interest groups, and representatives of states and cities. Importantly, DOE states that it will not pay for information submitted under the RFI and that no projects will be supported based on RFI responses. There is no financial assistance or incentive available through this notice, and submissions are purely advisory in nature.

For submission logistics, responses had to be emailed electronically to Decarb-Institute@ee.doe.gov by 5:00 pm Eastern Time on September 7, 2021. DOE required submissions as email attachments in Microsoft Word (.docx) format, limited to 20 pages, using 12-point font and 1-inch margins. Large attachments over 25 MB were recommended to be compressed (for example, zipped) to avoid delivery issues. Respondents were encouraged to organize answers by specific question or topic where applicable and could respond to as many or as few questions as they chose.

In the source listing details, the opportunity is categorized as “Other” rather than a standard grant solicitation, with the activity area listed as Energy and CFDA number 81.086. The agency name is shown as the Golden Field Office, and key administrative fields like award ceiling and expected awards are effectively not applicable here because the notice is an RFI rather than an award-making FOA. The posting date is July 28, 2021, with the closing date of September 7, 2021, reinforcing that the primary purpose was time-bound input gathering to shape DOE decision-making about a potential future institute and future funding.

• The Golden Field Office in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DE-FOA-0002564: Request for Information on Establishing a New Manufacturing Institute" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.086.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-07-28.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-09-07. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $2.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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