Frequently Asked Questions

DOE personnel cannot discuss a FOA “offline” or respond to questions on an individual basis. All questions and answers will be posted to the EERE Exchange website here - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/.  Please review the full FOA for complete information, including information on both Incorporated and Unincorporated Consortia.

Please review the full Funding Opportunity Announcement in the EERE Exchange website here - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/  - for complete information, including requirements for applying.

1.     Technology concepts are sought that are of specific benefit to the utility-scale (>1 MW) land-based wind industry and can serve as wide a geographic range of the U.S. as possible.

2.     DOE has previously funded a limited number of similar investments through its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. One such concept was with Wind Tower Systems, and more information can be found on the DOE website here:  (http://energy.gov/articles/small-business-innovation-research-grant-helps-propel-innovative-wind-energy-small-business).

In the case of in-kind cost share, the consultant will be volunteering their services to the project, and will not be receiving any compensation for the work.  The cost share will be verified when the Recipient receives their required annual audit and/or by DOE Project Managers during site visits.  The cost share will be verified based on the required documentation described below. See Appendix B – Cost Share Information within the FOA for more information on Cost Share.  The following excerpts from Appendix B are in reference to in-kind cost share.

Valuing and Documenting Contributions

• Valuing volunteer services. Volunteer services furnished by professional and technical personnel, consultants, and other skilled and unskilled labor may be counted as cost sharing or matching if the service is an integral and necessary part of an approved project or program. Rates for volunteer services must be consistent with those paid for similar work in the recipient's organization. In those markets in which the required skills are not found in the recipient organization, rates must be consistent with those paid for similar work in the labor market in which the recipient competes for the kind of services involved. In either case, paid fringe benefits that are reasonable, allowable, and allocable may be included in the valuation.

Documentation. The following requirements pertain to the recipient's supporting records for in‐kind contributions from third parties:

a. Volunteer services must be documented and, to the extent feasible, supported by the same methods used by the recipient for its own employees.

b. The basis for determining the valuation for personal services and property must be documented.

There is information you will need to input directly into EERE Exchange as part of the Concept Paper submission process, including “General Information”, “Contact Information”, “Team Members”, and “Funds and Costs”.  Please also follow the instructions within Section IV. C. of the FOA document for preparation of your actual Concept Paper and upload it as a single document when you “Upload and Submit” your Concept Paper information within the EERE Exchange website.

You can go to the “Contact Information” section of the FOA Summary on EERE Exchange here - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId66d6cb29-b48a-4c59-b99f-224392c97a6b – and click the email link for EERE Exchange Support.

You should receive a Control Number when you click the “Apply” button to begin the process of submitting your Concept Paper and applying for the FOA.  Please ensure you are clicking “Apply” within the Summary area for the specific FOA you are interested in. If you still have difficulty, please contact EERE Exchange Support through the email link provided in the FOA Summary area.

DOE cannot make eligibility determinations in advance, or advise whether an application should be submitted. Please carefully review the information in Section III of the FOA document to determine whether you are eligible to apply, and Section I to determine whether your concept falls within the Area of Interest of this FOA.

DOE intends to support research and development activities that will benefit U.S. manufacturing companies and the U.S  workforce. In addition to a plan to manufacture products resulting from this FOA in the U.S. for sale in the U.S., additional merit may be gained from opportunities for U.S. firms to export to the international market, manufacture abroad for the international market,  or license intellectual property for manufacture by others abroad for the international market.

The intent of this FOA is to fund projects with broad applicability to the dominant contemporary turbine architecture in order to establish clear pathways to commercialization of the funded innovations. The fact that “New turbine designs” are NOT of interest in this case means that no turbine design work will be funded under this FOA.   Further, DOE is not interested in funding projects with tower innovations that can only be commercialized along with a specific new turbine design, regardless of who is funding the turbine innovations.

The Concept Paper is part of the application and the FOA clearly states on page 46 in the section called “Treatment of Application Information” that EERE will use information contained in applications only for evaluation purposes.  This is supported by 10 C.F.R. § 600.15 - Authorized Uses of Information.  Concept Papers will remain confidential but they are still subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  If DOE receives a FOIA request, the applicant or recipient would have a chance to state their views to DOE about whether or not its application or award information should be released under FOIA.

The FOA also clearly states on page 47 in the section called “Evaluation and Administration by Non-Federal Personnel” that DOE may use non-Federal personnel as reviewers.  It also states that, “The applicant, by submitting its application, consents to the use of non-Federal reviewers.”  While an application may be reviewed by a non-Federal reviewer, those individuals must sign conflict of interest and non-disclosure agreements prior to beginning their review.  Thus, applications will not be reviewed by any non-Federal reviewer who has a conflict of interest with that particular application.  If the reviewer has a conflict of interest, he or she must recuse themselves from review activities for that application.

You can continue to monitor https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/  for information on current Funding Opportunity Announcements that your company may be interested in and eligible to apply for. 

In addition, the Department of Energy does accept unsolicited proposals in some circumstances. Information on unsolicited proposals can be found at http://www.netl.doe.gov/business/usp/unsol.html

DOE cannot provide advice on whether an application should be submitted. Please carefully review the information in Section I to determine whether your concept falls within the Area of Interest of this FOA. Applications which do not fall within the Area of Interest as stated in the FOA document will not be considered.

The full FOA and all application forms are available at:  https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId66d6cb29-b48a-4c59-b99f-224392c97a6b  Please be aware that only parties who submitted a concept paper by the deadline - 2/27/14 - can now submit a full application. 

Per the Funding Opportunity Announcement document, only potential applicants who submitted a Concept Paper by the deadline of 2/27/2014 are eligible to apply under the FOA.

Encourage/Discourage feedback will be provided on Concept Paper submissions no later than 3/17/2014.

In order to apply to the referenced Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), a Concept Paper must have been submitted by the deadline of February 27, 2014.

Please monitor the EERE Exchange website - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/ - for current opportunities that your organization may be interested in and eligible to apply for.

No applications will be accepted through grants.gov. As stated on the FOA cover page, to apply to this FOA, Applicants must register with and submit application materials, including Concept Papers and Full Applications through EERE Exchange at https://eere‐Exchange.energy.gov, EERE’s online application portal. EERE will not review or consider submissions submitted through means other than EERE Exchange.

A control number will be issued when an Applicant begins the Exchange application process. This control number must be included with all Application documents, including the Concept Paper, Full Application, and Reply to Reviewer Comments.

Please contact the grants.gov helpdesk to determine whether you can receive updates on a FOA without applying.  The contact information is at the lower right of the initial web page - http://www.grants.gov  

Please also monitor the specific FOA in the EERE Exchange website. Any modifications will be referenced, and the amended FOA document will be linked in the Summary here - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId66d6cb29-b48a-4c59-b99f-224392c97a6b

Grants and cooperative agreements may not provide for the payment of fee or profit to recipients or subrecipients. Please see 10 CFR 600.318 for additional information.

Please go to the Summary for the FOA in EERE Exchange here - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId66d6cb29-b48a-4c59-b99f-224392c97a6b.  Click on Required Application Documents and then select Appendix C – LCOE Calculation Guidance.  Note that you are not required to use the Appendix C Excel spreadsheet to submit the information, but the spreadsheet does show what information is required to be submitted.

Please see Question and Answer 31 here - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/FAQ.aspx?FoaId=66d6cb29-b48a-4c59-b99f-224392c97a6b

Topic Area 1 will support development and advancements of technologies including, but not limited to, active acoustic devices, passive acoustic devices and/or optical devices. The statement in section I.C of the FOA that “Applications for proposed technologies that are not based on sound scientific principles (e.g., violates the law of thermodynamics)” will not be considered refers to proven scientific principles, not scientific principles for acoustic measurements. DOE is soliciting applications that not only provide engineering solutions which enable higher hub heights for wind turbines; but also lower the cost of energy for wind.  In order to evaluate the impact of the proposed innovations on levelized cost of energy (LCOE), DOE needs a standard to compare the cost data against.  The baseline LCOE case that each applicant enters for a hub height of 80m, using 1.5 MW turbines, simply serves to verify how the assumptions the applicant made regarding their technology compare to the DOE baseline case in all important LCOE cost categories.  The review committee can then analyze the applicant’s LCOE data for the proposed innovative, taller hub height scenarios in this context.  Using the DOE baseline, the applicant baseline, and applicant’s innovative LCOE scenarios, the review committee will be able to determine what effect each particular innovation would have on the levelized cost of energy calculation without any assumptions which differ from DOE’s baseline in non-innovative cost categories altering the perceived overall LCOE results.    As stated in the FOA in Appendix C, “…increasing a turbine’s hub height may increase costs for systems such as tower, foundation, turbine installation etc… but may still be worthwhile due to the increase in energy production, resulting in an overall LCOE reduction.”

There is not an example, but the description of slide content is listed in the FOA in section  IV.D.6. “The Summary Slide template requires the following information:

·         A technology summary;

·         A description of the technology’s impact;

·         Proposed project goals;

·         Any key graphics (illustrations, charts and/or tables);

·         The project’s key idea/takeaway;

·         Project title, Prime Recipient, Principal Investigator, and Key Participant information; and,

·         Requested EERE funds and proposed applicant cost share.”

The EERE Exchange settings have been updated and you should now be able to submit the required slides using either .ppt or .pptx.

If you go back to the first tab, titled “General”, there is a place near the bottom of the screen to input the Lead Organization’s percentage of total contribution. Try changing that and then inputting the Team Member percentages on the Team Members tab. If you still have a problem, please contact the EERE Exchange Helpdesk at EERE-ExchangeSupport@HQ.DOE.gov

The applicant will have to estimate the cost of fabricating their tower design, and provide the justification that supports that estimate. 

This reference -  Fingersh, L.; Hand, M.; Laxson, A. (2006). Wind Turbine Design Cost and Scaling Model. NREL/TP-500-40566. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/40566.pdf  - indicates how NREL estimated tower costs for tubular steel towers, and it is one of the references cited in the S. Tegen, E. Lantz, M. Hand, et al. (2013). 2011 Cost of Wind Energy Review. NREL Report No. TP‐5000‐56266. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56266.pdf (This is the document referenced in the FOA in Appendix C.)

How the applicant estimates tower costs will be dependent on their particular design/concept.  DOE is not able to estimate the cost of an applicant’s design.

(Note that links may have to be cut and pasted.)

The settings within the EERE Exchange system have been updated and you should now be able to upload the "Summary for Public Release" as a pdf file. Please advise if this is not the case.

The unit $/kW is simply the total value of all the elements in a cost category, such as “Tower”, divided by the capacity rating of the turbine (for instance 3 MW, or 3,000 kW) for which the tower is designed.

Applicants are encouraged to review the NREL “Cost of Wind Energy Review” referenced in Q&A #43 in order to understand how cost of energy is calculated by DOE; however, for the purposes of this proposal, information is requested only on those cost categories directly related to or influenced by the proposed innovative tower and installation system. As indicated in the notes, applicants should provide cost  information on their proposed systems at the 80m baseline, as well as at higher heights as appropriate to their proposal.

The "Appendix C - LCOE Calculation Guidance" document found in the "Required Application Documents" within the initial summary screen for this FOA has been replaced with an Excel version. While you are not required to use this template to submit the LCOE information, the template does show the specific information you are required to submit.  

While four key spreadsheet cost categories are provided in Table 2 within the FOA document, “applicants are encouraged to add more detailed cost expenditures and savings with additional rows if needed” to highlight the perceived advantages of their proposed integrated system design. 

You should receive Reviewer Comments very shortly. The deadline to reply to Reviewer Comments has been updated to 05/20/2014, 5:00 PM EST, per Modification 0001 to the FOA. You will be able to upload replies within EERE Exchange until that date and time.

Please see Modification 0001 to the FOA here - https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId66d6cb29-b48a-4c59-b99f-224392c97a6b 

All questions must be submitted through the FOA Mailbox WindMfg@go.doe.gov. All questions asked through this Mailbox will be answered through the EERE eXCHANGE system and will be available to all interested parties. 

Per Section IV. F. of the FOA, “EERE has not established separate criteria to evaluate Replies to Reviewer Comments. Instead, Replies to Reviewer Comments are attached to the original applications and evaluated as an extension of the Full Application.”