WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced a $20 million funding opportunity to develop technology innovations that strengthen America’s water infrastructure and enable advanced water resource recovery systems that have the potential to be net energy positive.
This funding opportunity is part of DOE’s Water Security Grand Challenge, a White House-initiated, DOE-led framework to advance transformational technology and innovation to meet the global need for safe, secure, and affordable water.
“Today’s funding opportunity will invest in innovative water technologies and systems that will modernize and increase efficiency of our current water infrastructure,” said Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes. “Ensuring reliable, reusable and sustainable water infrastructure is something this Administration is strongly focused on achieving.”
Water and wastewater contain a significant amount of recoverable chemical, thermal, and hydrodynamic energy content. Treatment efficiencies and energy recovery options can enable treated water and wastewater systems in municipal, industrial, agricultural, utility, oil and gas, and other sectors to become net producers of energy.
Projects selected under this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), issued by EERE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, will explore the interconnected, cross-sector opportunities for technological innovation at the nexus of energy and water. DOE anticipates making approximately 10 awards.
“DOE’s Water Security Grand Challenge established an ambitious goal to double resource recovery from water resource recovery facilities by 2030,” said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Daniel R Simmons. “The selected projects will help achieve that goal by leveraging transformative research and development to improve our Nation’s aging water and wastewater treatment system infrastructure.”
The FOA covers two topic areas:
- Advance the development of transformative technologies beyond early-stage R&D to become pilot ready.
- Test currently developed, pilot-ready technologies through design, build, and operation in industrially relevant conditions to enable commercialization.
A minimum cost-share of 20% for R&D and 50% for piloting projects is required. Concept papers are due August 1, 2020.
