Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in the Future Power System | DE FOA 0001493

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0001493

The funding opportunity titled "Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in the Future Power System" (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0001493, Amendment 000001) is a discretionary Department of Energy grant focused on improving how the United States plans and operates the electric power system as it undergoes major changes. The opportunity is administered through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) under CFDA 81.122, and it reflects DOE's view that wholesale electricity markets and transmission planning are in a period of transition that demands new analytical and computational approaches. The core motivation is that the grid of the future will face higher levels of variability and complexity, so system operators, planners, and market designers need better tools to anticipate and manage risk and uncertainty while maintaining reliability.

The Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) is specifically looking for operational and planning modeling methodologies, along with computation techniques, that can support the next generation of engineering and market functions. In practical terms, this centers on developing or improving models and algorithms that can handle uncertain conditions (such as variable generation, changing demand patterns, equipment outages, and shifting market behavior) and still produce decisions that keep the system reliable and cost-effective. The announcement emphasizes that addressing risk and uncertainty is not optional but central to meeting system needs, with reliability described as a fundamental requirement. This makes the FOA particularly relevant to work involving probabilistic methods, stochastic optimization, robust decision-making, scenario-based planning, advanced simulation, and other techniques that explicitly incorporate uncertainty rather than treating it as an afterthought.

The FOA is organized around three research areas. The first is wholesale market operations, which generally concerns the day-to-day and hour-to-hour functioning of organized electricity markets, including how energy and related services are scheduled, priced, and settled. Research in this area would typically aim to improve market-clearing approaches and operational decision tools so they remain efficient and reliable when inputs are uncertain, such as fluctuating supply or demand and unexpected system conditions. The second area is transmission planning, which focuses on longer-term decisions about where and how to expand, upgrade, or reinforce the transmission network. Planning under uncertainty can involve evaluating many possible futures, including different generation mixes, load growth patterns, policy constraints, and technology adoption rates, and then identifying plans that perform well across those futures. The third area is demand-side participation, which addresses how electricity consumers and distributed resources can participate in grid and market functions, including demand response and other forms of flexible consumption. This area is aimed at better integrating demand-side capabilities into operations and planning, again with a focus on uncertainty and risk, since customer behavior and distributed resource availability can be variable and difficult to predict.

Eligibility is narrowly restricted. Only United States colleges, universities, and university-affiliated research institutions with accredited undergraduate and graduate programs are eligible to apply, and the eligible applicant types listed include both public/state-controlled institutions of higher education and private institutions of higher education. This indicates the program is designed to fund academic research and associated institutional research capacity, rather than private companies or non-academic nonprofits applying directly as prime recipients. The opportunity uses a grant instrument and is categorized under the energy funding activity area.

Key administrative details include an original closing date of 2016-04-21, an award ceiling of $360,000 per award, and an expectation of about six total awards. The announcement also notes that it is Amendment 000001 to the original FOA, and applicants are directed to Grants.gov and/or FedConnect to review the specific changes introduced by the amendment. Overall, the opportunity is aimed at advancing the modeling, analytics, and computational foundations needed to operate and plan an evolving power system, with explicit emphasis on techniques that quantify and manage uncertainty to support reliable future grid performance.

• The National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in the Future Power System" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.122.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-03-22.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2016-04-21. (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 $360,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

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