The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy recently issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (“FOA”) that requires the recipient to provide only twenty percent of the total budget. Funding will focus on three areas of interest: 

  1. Advancing Energy Efficiency in Public Facilities that will assist states to develop holistic, whole-building, deep retrofit programs or strategies across as broad a segment of the state’s public building portfolio as possible to achieve significant energy and cost savings.
  2. Stimulating Energy Efficiency Action that will assist states in generating the necessary policy and program frameworks to support investment in cost-effective energy efficiency and establish or increase a statewide energy savings goal by calendar year 2015.
  3. Improving or Developing A Fee-Based Self-Funded Public Facilities Energy Retrofit Program that will assist states in developing/improving and implementing a comprehensive and well-designed self-funded program which relies on a fee-for-services model that can successfully be used to retrofit public facilities statewide across many sectors (e.g., state buildings, municipal buildings, National Guard assets, school districts, water and wastewater treatment facilities, street lighting, etc.).

In accordance with 10 CFR 600.6(b), eligibility for award for Areas of Interest 1, 2 and 3 is restricted to the 50 States, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Applications must be submitted by the State Energy Office (“SEO”) or other agency responsible for administering the State Energy Program pursuant to 10 CFR 420, although States may work in collaboration with non-State entities. Non-State entities interested in collaborating with their respective State Energy Office must contact their respective SEO. It is a great opportunity for states, advocates and utilities to work together.