Improving Efficiency, Reliability, and Flexibility of Existing Coal-Based Power Plants | DE FOA 0001937

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0001937

The opportunity titled "Improving Efficiency, Reliability, and Flexibility of Existing Coal-Based Power Plants" (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0001937) is not a grant competition and does not provide funding by itself. It is a Request for Information (RFI) issued by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), specifically through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), to collect detailed input from industry and other stakeholders. The central goal is to gather practical, experience-based information that can shape a future, targeted research and development program focused on upgrading the performance of the existing U.S. fleet of coal-fueled electricity generating units (EGUs). In other words, DOE is trying to understand what technologies, R&D pathways, and deployment approaches look most promising so it can design future initiatives that are relevant, technically credible, and broadly applicable across many existing plants.

DOE is looking for responses from a wide range of stakeholders who work directly with coal power plant design, operation, maintenance, and upgrades. This includes plant owners and operators, equipment manufacturers, architect-engineering firms, and other organizations with technical insight into coal plant systems and operations. Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning any type of entity may respond, subject to any additional clarifications in the full RFI text. Because this is an information-gathering notice rather than a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), DOE explicitly states it is not accepting applications for awards under this notice, and the expected number of awards is listed as zero.

The RFI is organized around three technical focus areas that DOE considers central to improving the usefulness and competitiveness of existing coal plants in a changing electricity system. The first area is advanced technologies that improve efficiency at full load and/or part-load operation. This reflects the reality that many coal units no longer run steadily at full output all the time; instead, they may be dispatched at varying loads depending on market conditions and grid needs. DOE is interested in technology concepts and R&D ideas that can raise heat-rate performance and reduce efficiency losses when units operate below rated capacity, as well as upgrades that can improve overall thermodynamic performance without requiring a complete plant replacement.

The second focus area is reliability, availability, and maintainability (often abbreviated as RAM). Here DOE is seeking input on technologies and strategies that reduce forced outages, improve component life, simplify maintenance, and increase the time units can stay online when needed. This can include issues tied to high-wear components, corrosion and erosion, boiler and steam-cycle performance degradation, controls and instrumentation limitations, and maintenance practices that affect downtime and operating costs. The intent is to identify advanced approaches, potentially including improved materials, sensors, monitoring tools, diagnostics, predictive maintenance methods, and design modifications that can be retrofitted or broadly applied across the existing fleet.

The third area is operational flexibility, which generally means a plant's ability to respond to grid demands more quickly and more often, such as by ramping up or down, cycling on and off, operating stably at lower minimum loads, and maintaining performance during frequent load changes. DOE is looking for ideas that help coal units function in a power system with increasing variability and uncertainty, including conditions created by changing demand patterns and the growing presence of variable generation sources. Flexibility improvements often intersect with the first two areas because cycling and ramping can impose additional thermal stresses, accelerate wear, and create new reliability challenges. DOE is essentially asking for R&D concepts that help plants become more responsive without sacrificing safety, equipment life, or cost-effectiveness.

Administratively, this RFI falls under the Energy activity category and references CFDA number 81.089. The notice was created on May 23, 2018, with responses due by June 22, 2018. Submissions were required to be sent electronically to DE-FOA-0001937@netl.doe.gov, with a specific subject line format ("DE-FOA-0001937 - RFI"), and received no later than 8:00 pm Eastern Time on the closing date. While the listing includes fields like award ceiling and expected awards, those are not meaningful in the usual grant sense here because DOE is not making awards under this RFI; it is collecting information to guide future program design. The practical takeaway is that this notice is best understood as a planning and market-sounding step by DOE: it is meant to surface high-value technical opportunities, common fleet-wide pain points, and realistic R&D directions that could later become the basis for a formal funding announcement.

• The Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Improving Efficiency, Reliability, and Flexibility of Existing Coal-Based Power Plants" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.089.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 23, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 22, 2018 Responses to this RFI must be submitted electronically to DE-FOA-0001937@netl.doe.gov with the subject line quotDE-FOA-0001937 - RFIquot no later than 800pm (ET) on June 22, 2018.. (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 (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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