On March 20th, 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 boost the domestic production of large metallic near net shape (NNS) components, a critical step on the path toward deploying America’s clean power-generating technology. The FOA, led by EERE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO), will impact a broad cross-section of the U.S. manufacturing sector, including clean energy generation, transportation, industrial machinery, heavy equipment, and domestic infrastructure.
At present, approximately 95% of U.S. carbon-free power generation relies on complex systems consisting of large (10+ ton) near net shape metallic components. NNS manufacturing reduces both the amount of raw materials and energy used to create these components, by creating components that are close to their final or ‘net’ shape, and the amount of post-processing operations that follow the manufacturing process.
However, the U.S. domestic manufacturing base currently lacks the capacity and technical capabilities to competitively produce these large-scale components. This inability directly results in a continued reliance on foreign supply chains to produce critical systems needed to achieve the Biden Administration’s goals of obtaining 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050.
In February 2022, DOE responded to President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14017 by publishing “America’s Strategy to Secure the Supply Chain for a Robust Clean Energy Transition,” which identified the urgent need for domestic production of NNS components. This FOA will also address the advanced manufacturing technology challenges identified in the 2022 “National Strategy for Advanced Manufacturing.” Given the urgency to develop and deploy these technologies, identifying pathways that accelerate the timeline of technology development to commercialization will be central to these projects.
View the full notice of intent.
EERE intends to issue this FOA via EERE Exchange in April 2023. The funding opportunity is expected to provide approximately $30 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 two to three years.