Show me the Money: $564 Million Awarded to Integrated Biorefinery Projects
In an earlier blog post, Debra Frimerman reported that the U.S. Department of Energy was seeking applications for grants to help promote the construction and operation of pilot, demonstration, and commercial scale integrated biorefinery projects. Today, DOE announced the selection of 19 projects to receive up to $564 million in grant money authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Notable awards include the following:
· $81 million to Bluefire LLC for a Mississippi project to produce up to 19 million gallons of ethanol fuel annually from woody biomass, mill residue, and municipal solid waste.
· $50 million to Sapphire Energy, Inc. for a New Mexico project to produce algal fuels using the Dynamic Fuels refining process.
· $23 million to Clearfuels Technology Inc. for a Colorado scale project to produce renewable diesel and jet fuel from woody biomass.
A complete list of awards is available here.
Show me the Money: Green Jobs Grants
Recently, the U.S. Department of Labor has issued $500 million for green job training. This money is being released through a series of competitive grants.
If you are an organization within Washington State, the Governor's Office requests that you submit a brief information form to the Governor's Evergreen Jobs Leadership Team. The Team is compiling a list of potential applicants which will be posted on a public website. The information on this list will be available for stakeholders to find grant partners and leverage resources.
A copy of the form is available here: http://www.wtb.wa.gov/documents/clearinghousegrantform.doc
Show me the Money: $57 million Deployed to 30 Biomass Projects
On June 11, 2009, the Department of Agriculture ("USDA") announced that thirty projects, located in fourteen states, would receive $57 million in Recovery Act funding. Of these funds, $49 million will be for wood-to-energy grants and $8 million is for biomass utilization.
These funds will serve two important objectives. First, the funds will promote the development of biofuels from wood and stimulate renewable energy infrastructure. Second, the projects will create a market for low value woody biomass that would otherwise constitute fuel for wildfires.
For information about specific projects, please call the United States Forest Service or go to http://fs.usda.gov
Biomass Crop Assistance Program
The USDA has released a proposed Notification for Funds Availability (NOFA) for the Collection, Harvest, Storage and Transportation (CHST) of eligible biomass material. CHST is one of the programs under the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which was created by the 2008 Farm Bill.
The purpose of CHST is to provide matching funds to eligible persons or entities for the collection, harvest, storage and transportation of eligible material delivered to qualified biomass conversion facilities. Through this program, the Commodity Credit Corporation will provide matching payments on a dollar for dollar basis for each dry ton of eligible biomass delivered to a qualified biomass conversion facility, up to a maximum of $45 per ton. The matching payments are available to eligible persons or entities delivering the biomass to the facility who have the right to collect or harvest the biomass and are considered the owners of it.
The NOFA, once finalized, will be used to administer payments for CHST in advance of the rule on the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Comments on the NOFA are being requested through August 10, 2009.
For more information on USDA funding opportunities, please see our recent alert.
Show me the Money: Seminar for Identifying Funding for Renewable Energy Projects
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides almost $94 billion dollars in direct and indirect spending to clean energy company and projects. See Show me the Money: A Guide to Sources of Funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
On June 17, 2009, I will be speaking in Cle Elum, Washington about how to get your project "shovel ready" for Stimulus Funding. The seminar will also include sessions on identifying sources of funding and application mechanics.
Department of Energy Funds Research for Hydropower
On Friday, May 15th, The Department of Energy amended its April 15th Funding Opportunity Announcement, adding new research areas eligible for receipt of grants from the $40 million appropriated by Congress to investigate advanced water power energy generation technologies. All of the added categories are aimed at funding hydropower related research with the following goals:
--Studying how hydropower—both conventional and pumped storage—can meet current and future transmission needs. DOE is seeking an industry-led partnership with NGOs, government agencies, and/or universities to model the interactions of conventional and pumped storage hydropower projects on the transmission grid with the goal of shaping future policy decisions, as well as developing a better understanding of how current and future hydropower fits in with different market structures. The bottom line is that this research would increase the understanding of hydropower’s value in the overall national energy portfolio as well as the understanding of hydropower’s roll and integration into variable renewable energy sources. The total possible grant for this study is $3m over two years—and is expected to be awarded to one applicant.
--Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of novel approaches to environmental impact mitigation at hydroelectric facilities. DOE is expecting to grant awards of $500,000 to $750,000 to up to six industry participants for this purpose—with the overall goal of identifying novel environmental mitigation measures that are more effective and efficient than their traditional counterparts as well as measures that are widely applicable across the industry in the United States. These studies must be either industry-led, or industry partnerships with utilities, technology developers, consulting companies, private research institutes, or governmental laboratories or universities.
--A request for proposals to increase academic research in areas related to conventional hydropower or pumped storage hydropower. DOE recognized that academic research and graduate training opportunities in these areas are stagnant or declining, and is asking for proposals from universities, research institutes, foundations or non-profit organizations to manage a competitive fellowship program to support graduate students studying topics in these areas. This is a solicitation for managing a grant program, and the funding ($1 million for FY2009 and equivalent funds for 2010 and 2011 subject to future appropriations) appears to not be aimed at funding graduate research directly, but at creating a steering committee to guide future grants and increase academic research.
These funding opportunities come at a time when pumped storage is receiving increasing interest. A quick review of applications filed with FERC indicates there over thirty pumped storage projects planned nationwide—mostly in the western half of the country. Pumped storage is an attractive technology because it allows for load balancing by pumping water uphill to a storage facility during low load periods and use of that stored water power during periods of high demand.
Installation of conventional hydropower facilities at existing irrigation impoundments is also receiving increased attention because retrofitting such facilities would result in exploiting this unused resource without the need to create new impoundments. The Electric Power Research Institute cites a conservative estimate of 16,000 megawatts of additional generating capacity could be developed through installation of hydropower at existing dams--and notes that the actual resource may be much greater because this estimate is based on only 2,500 of the 79,000 non-hydropower dams in the United States. Regardless, this represents at least a 20% increase over existing hydropower generating capacity in the United States.
DOE’s funding announcement will support the development of both of these resources, and seems to be a recognition of the role hydropower can play in meeting the nation’s future energy needs. The complete text of the announcement is available here.
