Funding Opportunity Will Bolster American Manufacturing and Strengthen America’s Economic Competitiveness

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced its intent to issue a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) that will drive innovation leading to economy-wide decarbonization, increased sustainability, and economic competitiveness. The “FY22 Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies—Building Technologies Office Multi-topic FOA” will support the Biden-Harris Administration’s priorities to invest in the next-generation materials and manufacturing technologies needed to support manufacturing competitiveness, tackle the climate crisis, and move the U.S. towards a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

U.S. manufacturing is vital to our nation’s clean energy future. It is the backbone of our economy, providing millions of good-paying jobs for American workers across the country. Meeting our nation’s climate goals will require research and development as well as demonstration to enable a rapid scale-up and full-scale deployment of next-generation manufacturing technologies to build competitive, sustainable, and resilient manufacturing systems and domestic supply chains.

The “FY22 Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies—Building Technologies Office Multi-topic FOA” is expected to include the following topics that will accelerate research and development (R&D) leading to the adoption of innovative materials and manufacturing technologies in support of a clean, decarbonized economy.

Next Generation Materials and Manufacturing — This topic will focus on RD&D of novel materials with improved properties such as high pressure, high-temperature performance, and/or enhanced conductivity. Specific areas of interest include increased conductivity materials, harsh environment materials, and AI/machine learning for aerostructures.

Secure and Sustainable Materials — This topic will focus on R&D of material and process innovation in support of secure and sustainable supply chains for a clean economy. A specific area of interest includes materials circularity regional pilot demonstrations with a focus on accelerating pilot-scale demonstrations of circular economy technologies such as innovative material recovery, end-of-life processing, and recycling for key regional material supply chains.

Energy Technology Manufacturing and Workforce — This topic will focus on R&D of innovative manufacturing technologies to advance a clean energy economy. Specific areas of interest include building dehumidification scale-up and electric vehicle battery manufacturing to develop, scale-up, and pilot demonstrate chemistry-agnostic processing technologies to manufacture state-of-the-art cathode active materials (CAM) for current domestic manufacturing.

EERE plans to issue the FOA via EERE Exchange in November 2022. The funding opportunity is expected to include approximately $52 million in federal funding. EERE envisions awarding multiple financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements. The estimated period of performance for each award will be approximately one to three years.

View the NOI for more information.