Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT) – 2024 | DE FOA 0003158

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0003158

The Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers and Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT) - 2024 opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0003158) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Technologies Office (BTO) funding announcement issued through the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The program is aimed at accelerating practical, high-impact building energy technologies and retrofit solutions that can be manufactured, installed, and scaled more easily, while also improving building performance, affordability, and resilience. Awards are expected to be made as cooperative agreements, meaning DOE anticipates being substantially involved during the project period (for example, through technical direction, milestone review, or coordination). The total funding available is up to $30 million (subject to appropriations), and DOE anticipates making around 25 awards.

The FOA is organized around four topic areas that target persistent barriers to building decarbonization and energy savings. Topic 1 focuses on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and water heating technologies. The emphasis here is on improvements that make equipment better and easier to deploy in the real world, such as advanced materials and components, improved equipment design and engineering, lower-cost manufacturing approaches, and installation methods that reduce labor, complexity, and time on site. In practice, this topic is about moving beyond incremental gains and addressing the cost and deployment friction that often prevents high-efficiency HVAC and water heating solutions from achieving widespread adoption.

Topic 2 centers on innovative, replicable, and low-cost roof and attic retrofit technologies. DOE is looking for solutions that can be used at scale, particularly approaches that are affordable and repeatable across many building types and climates. The topic specifically calls out performance improvements tied to energy efficiency as well as building durability concerns, including air infiltration and water infiltration. This points to retrofits that do not just add insulation, but also deal with common failure points in roofs and attics that drive heat loss, moisture problems, and poor occupant comfort. The word "replicable" is key: DOE is signaling preference for packages and methods that can be broadly deployed rather than one-off custom designs.

Topic 3 addresses building resilience and capacity constraints, reflecting the growing need for buildings to stay safe and functional during grid outages and extreme weather. This topic includes novel approaches that help buildings maintain essential loads during blackouts and expand usable power capacity without requiring major utility or site infrastructure upgrades. It also highlights localized thermal management systems and thermally resilient building envelopes, with an explicit focus on maintaining cooling and preventing overheating during extreme heat events. In effect, DOE is looking for solutions that make buildings more capable under stress, whether that stress comes from outages, limited electrical capacity, or heat waves, while minimizing the need for expensive electrical service upgrades.

Topic 4 targets commercial lighting retrofit advancements, with an emphasis on low-cost, high-quality retrofit solutions for market segments that have been slower to adopt energy-efficient lighting. The FOA specifically mentions schools and certain commercial buildings as examples of lagging sectors. The intent is to encourage retrofit approaches that are easy to specify and install, meet quality expectations (light levels, color quality, glare, controls performance), and fit the budget realities of institutions that often defer lighting upgrades due to cost, disruption, or complexity.

Eligibility is broad and includes county governments; city or township governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; other Native American tribal organizations; public housing authorities and Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status; for-profit organizations (including those other than small businesses); small businesses; and even individuals. The funding activity category is energy, and the assistance listing (CFDA) number associated with the opportunity is 81.086. The administering office listed is DOE's Golden Field Office.

DOE is also compiling a Teaming Partner List connected to this FOA. This is meant to help applicants form strong project teams by allowing organizations to publicly express interest in collaborating, making it easier for prime applicants and potential partners to find each other and build consortia that cover the needed technical capabilities, demonstration sites, manufacturing expertise, or deployment channels. Applicants and prospective partners are directed to the FOA's Teaming List section for the rules and process.

Applications are submitted through EERE eXCHANGE, DOE's online submission system. The FOA notes that the platform enforces deadlines automatically, meaning the "Apply" and "Submit" functions will disable at the submission cutoff. For technical issues that arise before the deadline, applicants are instructed to contact the EERE eXCHANGE helpdesk at EERE-eXCHANGESupport@hq.doe.gov, and the helpdesk or system administrators will assist with resolving submission problems. The original closing date listed for this opportunity is March 5, 2024, and the FOA was created on November 6, 2023.

• The Golden Field Office in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT) – 2024" 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 2023-11-06.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-03-05. (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 $30,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 25 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: County governments, City or township governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, Individuals, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses.

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