Technology Development to Ensure Environmentally Sustainable CO2 Injection Operations | DE FOA 0001725

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0001725

The Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE-NETL) funding opportunity titled "Technology Development to Ensure Environmentally Sustainable CO2 Injection Operations" (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0001725) supports research and development aimed at making geologic carbon storage projects easier to monitor, verify, and manage over time. The core problem it targets is the cost and uncertainty associated with tracking where injected CO2 goes once it is stored underground. The FOA is focused on developing practical techniques, tools, and methodologies that improve the detection and assessment of CO2 within the intended (target) storage reservoir, so operators can determine the location and behavior of the CO2 plume with higher confidence during both active injection and the post-injection period.

A key emphasis of the opportunity is on improving monitoring and assessment capabilities. Projects funded under this FOA are expected to produce monitoring tools and monitoring techniques that can better observe, interpret, or confirm CO2 distribution in the subsurface. In addition to field or measurement technologies, the FOA also calls for validation of models and modeling techniques. That means proposals are expected not only to build or refine monitoring approaches, but also to strengthen the analytical and predictive side of carbon storage, such as demonstrating that models accurately represent plume movement, trapping behavior, or reservoir responses when compared against observations or real-world data.

The intended impact is largely economic and operational: successful technologies should reduce the long-term monitoring burden that storage operators face. Long-duration monitoring can be expensive because it often requires repeated surveys, complex interpretation, and conservative monitoring plans to meet regulatory and environmental assurance needs. By providing more certain, better-validated ways to assess CO2 plume position and behavior throughout the project life cycle, the FOA aims to lower costs while maintaining or improving environmental assurance. In other words, the grant supports innovations that can help confirm the CO2 remains where it is supposed to be, using methods that are more reliable, more informative, or potentially more cost-effective than existing approaches.

From an administrative standpoint, this was a discretionary funding opportunity using a Cooperative Agreement as the funding instrument, indicating DOE involvement beyond a simple pass-through grant (often including substantial technical engagement, milestones, and coordination). It fell under the funding activity category of Energy, Science and Technology, and other Research and Development, with CFDA number 81.089. Eligibility was listed as unrestricted, meaning it was open to a broad range of applicant types as long as any additional eligibility conditions in the full announcement were met.

The opportunity was released on June 12, 2017, with an original application deadline of August 11, 2017. The maximum award amount (award ceiling) was $2,000,000, and DOE expected to make about 4 awards. Overall, the FOA can be read as a targeted push to advance the monitoring-and-model-validation toolkit for geologic CO2 storage, with the practical goal of improving confidence in subsurface plume tracking while reducing the long-term financial and operational load of monitoring across both injection and post-injection phases.

• The Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Technology Development to Ensure Environmentally Sustainable CO2 Injection Operations" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.089.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 12, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 11, 2017. (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 $2,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 4 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.

Apply for DE FOA 0001725

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