On September 20, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Grant Implementation Grants: General Competition. This grant awards funding to state and local governments, agencies, and tribes to implement greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction measures.
The Electrification Coalition’s (EC) key takeaways from the NOFO include:
- Goal: Fund projects that implement GHG reduction programs and policies and are identified in a Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) developed under a CPRG planning grant.
- Eligible applicants: Lead organizations who have been awarded under the CPRG Planning Grant and submit their PCAP by March 1, 2024, OR state and territorial agencies, municipalities, air pollution control agencies, and tribes that did not directly receive planning grant funds but seek funding to implement one or more measures included in an applicable PCAP.
- Ineligible applicants: Applicants in Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and South Dakota are ineligible unless covered by a PCAP by one of the 12 MSAs (pg 19) awarded a planning grant in these states.
- Due date: Implementation applications are due April 1, 2024, 11:59 PM EST via grants.gov.
- Cost share: There is no cost share requirement.
- Total funding: There is $4.6 billion across two funding streams: $4.3 billion for general competition and $300 million exclusively for tribes and territories.
- Immediate impact prioritization: Application scoring will place an emphasis on the magnitude of near-term GHG reductions that will be achieved by the proposed measures.
- Coalitions: The CPRG general competition emphasizes eligible applicants to apply for funding together as a coalition to implement GHG reduction measures regionally.
- Eligible EV projects*: The NOFO illustrates many examples of electrification across different sectors, including, but not limited to, EV fleets and EV charging infrastructure, port and freight terminal efficiency, electrification of commercial and residential buildings, and development of distributed or community-scale renewable energy generation, microgrids, or vehicle-to-grid infrastructure.
- Award designation: EPA anticipates it will announce selection decisions by July 2024 and tentatively plans to issue awards by October 2024. The estimated period of performance for awards resulting from this solicitation will be up to five years.
Please reach out to the EC team at infrastructure@electrificationcoalition.org with any questions.
*All EV related projects will be subject to the minimum standards set forth Title 23, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 680, as well as the Build America, Buy America provisions of IIJA.