TRIBAL CLEAN ENERGY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT - 2025 | DE FOA 0003401

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0003401

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through its Office of Indian Energy and administered by the Golden Field Office, is offering the Tribal Clean Energy Planning and Development - 2025 funding opportunity (DE-FOA-0003401). This is a discretionary grant program meant to help Tribal communities move clean energy projects forward by supporting early-stage work that often determines whether projects are realistic, financeable, and ready for implementation. The FOA focuses on building practical, decision-ready plans and project foundations rather than directly funding large-scale construction.

Eligible applicants include Indian Tribes, as well as Alaska Native Regional Corporations and Alaska Native Village Corporations. The FOA also allows Intertribal Organizations and Tribal Energy Development Organizations to apply, as long as they meet the specific eligibility rules laid out in Section III.A of the FOA on DOE's IE-Exchange website. Applications must be submitted through the IE-Exchange platform, where DOE also provides the official FOA document and the required application forms and templates.

DOE is soliciting projects under three topic areas that reflect a typical pipeline for clean energy progress. Topic Area 1 supports clean energy planning, which can include activities like developing or updating Tribal energy plans, setting community priorities, assessing local energy burdens, identifying high-value opportunities (such as solar, wind, storage, efficiency, district energy, microgrids, or electrification), and producing actionable roadmaps that guide future investment and implementation decisions. Topic Area 2 supports comprehensive feasibility and viability assessments for deploying clean energy technology. This is aimed at determining whether a specific project concept can work in the real world, including technical feasibility, site considerations, interconnection and grid constraints, permitting pathways, resource assessments, cost estimates, business model options, and financial viability. Topic Area 3 supports clean energy design and development activities, which generally means advancing a project beyond feasibility into concrete development steps, such as more detailed system design, engineering analyses, project scoping, procurement planning, partnership development, and other pre-construction activities that make a project "shovel-ready" or ready to secure financing and permits.

The funding structure includes a standard cost share requirement. Unless DOE approves a reduction, applicants must provide a non-federal cost share equal to at least 10 percent of the total allowable project cost (with DOE covering the remaining federal share). In other words, the total project budget must combine federal funds plus the applicant's non-federal contribution, and at least 10 percent of that combined total must come from non-federal sources. The FOA also allows applicants to request a cost share reduction from 10 percent down to 0 percent if they can demonstrate financial need. DOE indicates it may consider need based on measures such as the Tribal community poverty rate or the community median household income compared to the statewide median household income. The details of how to request and justify that reduction are addressed in Section III.B.2 of the FOA and in the application templates provided on IE-Exchange.

DOE expects to make about $25 million in federal funding available under this announcement, although the final amount depends on Congressional appropriations. The agency anticipates making roughly 20 to 40 awards, and it notes that it may choose to fund projects in one, several, or none of the topic areas depending on application quality, program priorities, and available funds. The listed award ceiling is $2,500,000 per award, meaning individual grants are not expected to exceed that amount.

Key administrative details include an original application closing date of January 23, 2025. The program is categorized under Energy (CFDA/Assistance Listing 81.087), and the funding instrument is a grant. For applicants, the most important next step is to review the full FOA on IE-Exchange for the formal scope, eligibility requirements, allowable and unallowable costs, required attachments, and the evaluation criteria DOE will use to score and select projects.

• The Golden Field Office in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "TRIBAL CLEAN ENERGY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT - 2025" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.087.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-09-27.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-01-23. (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 $2,500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 40 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for DE FOA 0003401

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