For the reason that passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation (BIL) in 2021 and the Inflation Discount Act (IRA) 14 months in the past, the Division of Power’s (DOE) Workplace of the Beneath Secretary for Infrastructure has handed out $67 billion in clear power funding. A plethora of grant alternatives for companies, startups and nonprofits can be found inside a number of departments of the DOE — from grid reliability upgrades to renewable power know-how manufacturing services. To safe a few of the $97 billion funding out there, candidates should courageous a bureaucratic system. 

Step one to use? Earlier than filling out any particulars concerning the particular grants you’re focusing on, you could full a brand new part of the grant utility known as the Neighborhood Advantages Plans (CBP). This supporting documentation is necessary for requesting funding from BIL or IRA applications. 

Let’s check out the specifics of the CBP, in addition to useful tricks to think about when embarking on a federal grant utility tied to BIL or the IRA funding. 

Keep up-to-date with the DOE

First, join any and all newsletters throughout the DOE that you just assume could also be relevant. Every workplace inside its Workplace of the Beneath Secretary for Infrastructure has a number of particular newsletters that handle its particular material and issues. These embrace the places of work of Grid Deployment, Cybersecurity, Power Safety and Emergency Response, Clear Power Demonstrations, Mortgage Packages Workplace, Manufacturing and Power Provide Chains, and State and Neighborhood Power Program. The newsletters announce grant utility alternatives and related timelines; enroll right here.

The newsletters additionally announce time intervals throughout which you’ll present suggestions that in the end shapes a grant’s program design earlier than it goes reside. The DOE dubs this the “Request for Info (RFI)” stage of the grant course of, so look ahead to that window of time to train your voice.

Neighborhood Advantages Plans: The what and why

The DOE says it created the newly required CBP supporting doc for each BIL or IRA program funding utility to make sure “broadly shared prosperity within the clear power transition.” The CBP holds a variety of weight throughout the utility course of — about 20 % of a undertaking’s total rating, which performs a big function in figuring out a funding award. The rating facilities round how your utility will implement the next 4 sections required for the funding:

Justice40 Initiative

In January 2021, the Biden administration launched the Justice40 Initiative, inside an government order, to confront and handle the nation’s underinvestment in deprived communities. To that finish, throughout the CBP’s Justice40 part you could clearly reveal how funds will circulate to particular deprived communities; create a timeline of when and the way anticipated advantages will circulate to them; handle the best way to clearly observe the advantages as soon as they’ve been obtained; and handle anticipated damaging environmental impacts for the communities in query. 

Variety, Fairness, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA)

The CBP’s DEIA part requires that you just clearly clarify how the undertaking will incorporate variety, fairness, inclusion and accessibility aims. This a part of the appliance ought to lay out how your undertaking might associate with companies that both serve or are run by underrepresented populations, in addition to instructional establishments and coaching organizations that serve individuals who face boundaries to jobs.  

Good jobs

For the “Good Jobs” part, reveal how you plan to draw, practice and retain the expert labor obligatory to finish the undertaking. Moreover, you could make clear commitments to employee unionization, pathways to development and above common wages and advantages.

Workforce and neighborhood agreements

Lastly, workforce and neighborhood agreements require candidates to explain native stakeholder engagement plans, making certain that every one native employees concerned within the undertaking are accounted for and guarded. Native stakeholders embrace labor unions, tribal governments and community-based organizations. 

If the DOE in the end selects your utility, it is going to publish a abstract of the CBP on-line publicly for transparency and accountability. A DOE-hosted webinar offering extra detailed info may be discovered right here. I’ll dive into the particular grant alternatives in upcoming protection.