Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0001628
Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0001628, titled "Productivity Enhanced Algae and Tool-Kits (PEAK)," is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funding opportunity released through the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) on behalf of DOE's Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). The overall purpose of the FOA is to push algal biofuels and bioproducts closer to practical, high-performing outdoor deployment by funding multidisciplinary biological innovation. DOE is looking for projects that can produce not only better-performing algal systems, but also broadly useful outputs such as strains, enabling tools, datasets, and validated techniques that other researchers can build on to accelerate future progress.
The core technical focus is improving two closely related outcomes that largely determine algal biofuel potential: (1) areal productivity, meaning how much biomass can be produced per unit area over time in realistic cultivation settings, and (2) fuel yield, meaning the quality and composition of the biomass (for example, traits tied to lipid, carbohydrate, or other fuel-relevant fractions). DOE emphasizes that many algae successes in controlled laboratory conditions do not reliably translate to outdoor conditions, so the FOA prioritizes approaches that explicitly address species-specific constraints and real-world ecological and operational challenges that can limit productivity, stability, and composition.
The FOA is organized into two topic areas. Topic Area 1, Strain Improvement, supports small teams working on creating or enhancing algal strains that can reproducibly outperform current best-available strains under outdoor conditions. "Outperform" is framed broadly to include higher productivity, greater robustness (for instance, resilience to fluctuating temperature, light, and other stressors), and improved composition relevant to biofuel production. The FOA explicitly allows a range of strain improvement strategies, including gene discovery and biological pathway analysis, directed evolution, breeding, and genetic engineering, as long as the proposed approach is well-justified and tied to a credible path for measurable outdoor gains. Applicants under this topic are expected to make a clear, detailed case for why the chosen organism and improvement strategy are appropriate, what evidence supports feasibility, and why the approach has a high probability of success in the environments that matter.
Topic Area 2, Cultivation Biology Improvement, also targets higher areal productivity and better fuel-relevant composition, but focuses on improving the cultivation system rather than primarily changing the strain itself. This topic supports projects that enhance performance through better management of ecological interactions and abiotic factors that strongly influence outdoor outcomes. Examples include understanding and leveraging microbial communities associated with algal cultivation (either naturally occurring or intentionally designed assemblages) to boost productivity, improve stability, or resist pathogens and contaminants. It also includes building stronger understanding of species-specific cultivation conditions and responses, especially under fluctuating and partially uncontrollable conditions such as variable nutrients and stochastic climatological changes. As with Topic Area 1, applicants are expected to provide a detailed rationale for their cultivation improvement strategy and explain why it is likely to work in real, outdoor-relevant settings.
A defining feature of PEAK is that selected projects are required to participate in a cultivation readiness validation and benchmarking exercise described as a "friendly challenge" called the PEAK Challenge. This requirement is meant to ensure that performance claims are tested in a comparable, outdoor-relevant way and that projects demonstrate results beyond small-scale or purely indoor experiments. Teams must pass an interim Go/No-Go decision point, which serves as a checkpoint to validate seasonal areal productivity and biomass composition before proceeding further. Near the conclusion of development, teams must conduct a field-based cultivation campaign with adequate controls and duration, using the growing season and cultivation equipment of their choice, and demonstrate peak productivity potential across the culture growth curve in an outdoor-relevant environment. In practical terms, DOE is signaling that final success is judged by demonstrated field performance, not just promising laboratory indicators.
From an administrative standpoint, the FOA is a discretionary DOE funding opportunity administered by the DOE Golden Field Office. Awards are planned as cooperative agreements, which typically implies substantial DOE involvement during project execution (for example, in planning, milestones, reviews, and coordination activities), rather than a hands-off grant structure. The FOA lists an award ceiling of $3,000,000 and an expectation of about six awards. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any type of entity), subject to any additional clarifications in the full FOA text.
Key dates in the announcement include a concept paper deadline of January 13, 2017 at 5:00 pm Eastern Time and a full application deadline of February 22, 2017 at 5:00 pm Eastern Time, with the opportunity originally posted on December 15, 2016. Applications were required to be submitted through the EERE eXCHANGE portal (https://eere-exchange.energy.gov), which requires applicants to register and create an account. The full FOA also provides the official instructions for submission and identifies where to send questions about either the technical content of the opportunity or the mechanics of submitting an application through the portal.
In short, DE-FOA-0001628 (PEAK) is designed to move algal biofuels forward by funding small, multidisciplinary teams that can either (1) deliver improved algal strains and enabling toolkits or (2) deliver cultivation biology advances and toolkits that raise outdoor productivity and improve biomass composition. The required PEAK Challenge and Go/No-Go checkpoint make it clear that DOE is prioritizing validated, outdoor-relevant performance and transferable outputs (strains, tools, methods, and data) that can speed up innovation across the broader algae R&D community.Apply for DE FOA 0001628
- The Department of Energy, Golden Field Office in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) Number: DE-FOA-0001628, “Productivity Enhanced Algae and Tool-Kits (PEAK)”" and is now available to receive applicants.
- Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.087.
- This funding opportunity was created on Dec 15, 2016.
- Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 22, 2017 Deadline for Concept Papers 01/13/2017 500 pm (ET) Deadline for Full Applications 02/22/2017 500 pm (ET). (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
- Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $3,000,000.00 in funding.
- The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
- Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.
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