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["INSTRUCTIONS"]
[1,"All questions pertaining to this funding opportunity announcement should be emailed to pv.csp.foa@ee.doe.gov. "]
[2,"All questions pertaining to EERE Exchange should be emailed to EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov. Include FOA name and number in subject line."]
[3,"All questions and answers pertaining to this FOA will be posted on EERE Exchange within this spreadsheet."]
[4,"DOE will attempt to respond to a question within 3 business days, unless a similar question and answer has already been posted in this spreadsheet. "]
[5,"All questions should be submitted not later than 3 business days prior to the application due date. Questions submitted after this date will not be answered."]
[6,"Questions are assigned a number in accordance with when they are reviewed by DOE.  "]
[7,"Questions are assigned a topic area by DOE when reviewed."]
[]
["TIPS"]
[1,"Applicants may sort questions and answers in the question tabs of this spreadhseet by selecting the drop-down box arrow on the column headers and selecting any of the listed attributes."]
[2,"Applicants may search for questions and/or keywords by holding CTRL+F on the keyboard and typing in a phrase or keyword."]

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["ADMINISTRATIVE QUESTION AND ANSWER LOG"]
["DE-FOA-0002378- SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES OFFICE FISCAL YEAR 2021 FUNDING PROGRAM Photovoltaics and Concentrating Solar Power"]
["Question #","Date Submitted","Topic","Question","Answer"]
[1,"2021-03-26","Cost Sharing","I wanted to clarify if cost share is required for national laboratory led submissions.  The cost share must come from non-federal funds this would be difficult for us to do, unless the proposal has a non-fed partner willing to contribute?","Please see section III.B.iv of the FOA regarding FFRDC cost share."]
[2,"2021-04-12","Other","FOA stated that the word limit for the abstract of LOI of a SIPS proposal is 200 words (p.81). However, in the exchange submission window, it says up to 4000 characters allowed. Which one should be followed?","Please see section IV.C. of the FOA regarding content requirements for LOI's.  "]
[3,"2021-04-14","Eligibility","Would it be OK if I submitted two letters of intent for the SIPS proposals as a lead PI? ","Please see section III.F of the FOA regarding limits on the number of submissions.  "]
[4,"2021-04-15","Registration Requirements","I’m seeing conflicting information where to submit my companies LOI under topic 5(a) of the DE-TA5-0002378. ","Please see section IV.A of the FOA regarding submission requirements for the FOA."]
[5,"2021-04-21","Other","I am reaching out to seek your guidance and advice, as umlaut Inc. intend to submit an LOI for a solar research project in the Topic Area 5a PV SIPS. \n\nHowever, it sounds that we can only submit our technical abstract/concept at this stage, and we must upload all other supporting documents (such as our capabilities, previous researches and projects in the renewable fields) later. I very much appreciate your guidance on this. ","Please review Section IV.C of the FOA regarding content and Form for Letters of Intent.  "]
[6,"2021-04-22","Registration Requirements","In EERE Exchange, the topic drop-down does not include Topic 5 (a or b).  Per the solicitation, a letter of intent (not concept paper) is required for all topics. ","Please see DE-TA5-0002378 when applying for either Topic Area 5a or 5b."]
[7,"2021-04-22","Eligibility","I am research assistant at University of XXX, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, XXX, Republic of XXXXX.\n\nIs it possible for non US citizens to apply for researching grants in DOE of US?","Please see Section III.A.iii regarding Eligibility and Foreign Entitites.  "]
[8,"2021-05-06","Due Dates","When is the expected submission deadline for replies to reviewer comments? ","The expected submission deadline for replies to reviewers in now August 3, 2021."]
[9,"2021-05-06","Due Dates","What is the expected date for EERE Selection Notifications? ","The expected date for EERE Selection Notifications is now October 1, 2021."]
[10,"2021-05-06","Due Dates","When is the expected time frame for award negotiations?","The expected time frame for award negotiations is now October 2021 – January 2022."]
[11,"2021-05-11","Application Content/Format","Are SF-424, SF-LLL, and budget justification workbooks required for FFRDCS?","Please see Secion IV.E.i of the FOA regarding Full Application submission requirements."]
[12,"2021-05-12","Application Content/Format","For DE-FOA-0002378 Topic Area 5, will the DOE Field Work Proposal and Authorization from Contracting Officer for FFRDC be due with the full applications?","Please see Secion IV.E.i of the FOA regarding Full Application submission requirements."]
[13,"2021-05-11","Application Content/Format","What is the expected length of the diversity statement plan? Are their minimum/max limits?","Please see Secion IV.E.i of the FOA regarding Full Application submission requirements (page 86)."]
[14,"2021-05-20","Intellectual Property","We are currently a tiny business, and expect to grow rapidly after we demonstrate our technologies. If we are a small business when the grant is awarded and during much of the execution of the project, but become a large business (over 500 employees) before its end, which condition controls?","If a small business grows beyond the size standard during the award, it will still be considered a small business under the award unless the growth is from an acquisition or merger.  If there is an acquisition or merger, the awardee may be asked to recertify which may result in the award being modified to reflect the awardee no longer qualifying as a small business.  "]
[15,"2021-05-20","Intellectual Property","Can we retain title to the intellectual property?","Domestic small businesses and domestic large businesses are both able to retain ownership of intellectual property under the award.  See VIII (J)-(M) of the FOA for more detail."]
[16,"2021-05-20","Intellectual Property","Does it make a difference if a battery business (under common control with a solar business) becomes large while the solar business is still small?","The Small Business Administration (SBA) rules govern on whether a business qualifies as a “small business.”  SBA’s size standards for employees include employees of affiliates.  It will depend on whether the battery business and solar business are affiliates of each other and what is meant be “common control”.    (See Size standards (sba.gov))  "]
[17,"2021-05-20","Intellectual Property","How much time is allowed to obtain patents prior to making technology information public?","A small business is required to disclose the invention to DOE within 2 months of it being made, elect title to the invention within 2 years of the disclosure to DOE and file a patent application within 1 year from the election of the invention.  During that time, DOE would protect the invention disclosure from public release.  "]
[18,"2021-05-27","Cost Sharing","Can Independent Research and Development (IRAD) can be considered as cost sharing?","Please review 2 CFR 200 Subpart E for Non-Federal entites, and FAR Part 31 for For-Profit entites."]
[19,"2021-06-01","Foreign Entities/Work","We have a new faculty member coming to our campus.  Our HR department is obtaining a H-1B Visa for his employment.  Our question is, is he eligible to be a PI at our institution?  ","“Typically, applicants to EERE FOAs are entities (e.g., universities, small businesses, large corporations, governmental units). In the limited instances where an individual applies for funding and the individual would be the named recipient, the individual must be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.\n\nFor this FOA, if an eligible entity applies and would be the named recipient, the individual persons participating on the project are not required to be U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. However, selected recipients must consider to what extent export controls apply to the project and whether the applicable export controls impose any limitations regarding access of foreign nationals. Also, per Section VI.B.iii, if a project is selected for funding, the recipient may be required to provide information to DOE in order to satisfy requirements for foreign nationals’ access to DOE sites, information, technologies, equipment, programs or personnel. DOE will let the recipient know when it must provide this information on the project participants and will provide the recipient with reasonable notice to comply.”"]
[20,"2021-06-03","Application Content/Format","We are an FFRDC and the call requires us to provide an FWP for our portion of the proposed work.  If our budget is more than $250K or 25%, do we, as an FFRDC, need to also provide the Subrecipient Budget Justification?","Please review the budget justification document for the requirements around submission of the document.  Please also review Section IV.E.viii of the FOA regarding FFRDC budget requirements.  "]
[21,"2021-06-07","Application Content/Format","I’m in the process of submitting a proposal to the SETO and I’m filling out the required SF-LLL disclosure. Is there a different document to submit if you have no lobbying activity?"," Please review Section IV.E.x of the FOA regarding SF-LLL requirements.  "]
[22,"2021-06-07","Application Content/Format","Page 87 of the FOA lists the Budget Justification Workbook (MS Excel) as a requirement of the full application for topic areas 5a and 5b. However, there is no spot on the “Upload and Submit” tab to upload this workbook."," Please review all of Section IV.E of the FOA regarding required documents to be submitted.  "]
[23,"2021-06-02","Application Content/Format","On page 85 of the FOA, resumes are limited to 1 page each. On page 95, it seems to suggest two pages are acceptable.","Resumes may run up to 2 pages in length as per page 95 of the FOA.  Please note that 2 page resumes will not be given any additional value, and will be reviewed in line with Section V of the FOA."]
[24,"2021-06-14","Cost Sharing","If personnel costs are used as cost share, can the G&A associated with those personnel costs be included in the total cost share? Would doing so require program manager approval? If so, I would like to ask for approval. ","Please review 2 CFR 200 Subpart E for Non-Federal entites, and FAR Part 31 for For-Profit entites.  DOE does not and will not provide prior approval on applications.  Budgets are negotiated once selections are made and announced.  "]
[25,"2021-06-14","Application Content/Format","I notice that \"letters of commitment\" is not included in the topic 5 application content list. Is it allowed to include one in the application? ","Please review Section IV.E regarding applications requirements, and documents that will be requested after selections have been made."]
[26,"2021-06-17","Application Content/Format","Are there a template available for these two plans? (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan and the U.S. Manufacturing Plan / Commitment).  Are sub-recipients required to submit these documents?","No.  For sub-recipients, please review Secion IV. E regarding required documents to be submitted.  Submission requirements will be noted for each document as to which team members will be required to provide said document.  "]
[27,"2021-06-19","Application Content/Format","We are working out a proposal but we did not see an example of the summary slide.","Please see the posting for DE-FOA-0002378 for templated to be used. "]
[28,"2021-06-20","Application Content/Format","I am filling out the application for #FOA-0002378-5A and it is asking for completed form 424A. I am not able to download this, and it comes up as a pdf file. But if I search other places, it is also coming up as an excel file.","Please note that a version of the SF-424A is built into the Budget Justification document, and populates as the various tabs are filled out.  As such the SF-424A is submitted at the time the Budget Justifciation is due as per the noted requirements in the FOA."]
[29,"2021-06-04","Eligibility","We were recently notified that our concept paper submitted to Topic 4b was encouraged and we're therefore working to complete the full proposal.  We had also submitted the same idea as a letter of intent to Topic 5b.  Therefore we have two control numbers.  Is it permissible to submit the same idea to both topics provided that we indicate clearly that the proposal was submitted to both places?","Please review Secion III.F regarding limitations on the number of applications an applicant may submit."]
[30]
[31]
[32]
[33]
[34]
[35]

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["Pick List"]
[]
["Registration Requirements"]
["Webinar"]
["Concept Paper"]
["Eligibility"]
["Labs/FFRDCs"]
["Foreign Entities/Work"]
["Cost Sharing"]
["Due Dates"]
["Application Content/Format"]
["Intellectual Property"]
["Data Management"]
["Other"]
["U.S. Manufacturing Plan"]
["Application Reviews"]
["Technical Topics"]