EECBG Competitive Grants Presentation (Text Version)
Below is a text version of the November 4, 2009 EECBG Competitive Grants Application Process.
Announcer: Steve Dunn
My name is Steve Dunn and I am an Officer here at the DOE global field office. We like to thank you for joining us today. We have over 800 participants that have registered for today's session and we are very excited about the program and we hope that this is a productive session for you. We certainly appreciate your time and interest in the competitive block grant funding opportunity announcement.
Next Slide: Housekeeping
Steve Dunn:
Today's webinar is going to summarize the funding opportunity announcement which is number EE-FOA- 0000148. We have a few housekeeping notes to mention before we get into the presentation. First, as you can see all participants are muted and we will not be taking questions today on the webinar we have a process set up through the fed connect system to submit questions by applicants, receive responses from DOE so that everyone sees the questions and responses that are being submitted to the following.
This is a competitive process and we want all information to be available to all applicants. We will describe the process for submitting those questions later in this webinar. If you do have technical difficulties specific to the webinar today such as being able to view the slides or hearing the audio, please use the chat window to submit those questions.
There are four speakers in addition to myself; Karen Bahan with the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center is the Contracting Officer for the competitive block grant funding opportunity announcement and from the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy at DOE headquarters we have Colin McCormick, Carole Reed, and Johanna Zetterberg.
There is a web page available on the EERE homepage which provides more information about the competitive block grant, that address is www.eecbg.energy.gov/about/competitive_grants.html.
Next Slide: Important Links
Steve Dunn:
On the next slide we provide some additional links you will find of use related to the competitive grant program and the funding opportunity announcement. You can download the from the block grants webpage. There are also answers to frequently asked questions posted and the full application package may be downloaded from grants.gov and the Fed Connect system.
The EECBG solution center has additional resources on each of the eligible activities areas within the block grant program. The slides from today's webinar will be available on the webcasts section of the solution center website. An audio recording will also be made available on the same page. Again you may submit questions about this through the FedConnect system and you can find information on the process for doing so on page 44 of the funding opportunity announcement and we will provide more information about the process for submitting questions in today's webinar. I am now going to turn it over to Johanna Zetterberg to provide a, I'm sorry first we will go through an outline of the presentation excuse me and then I will turn it over to Johanna.
Next Slide: Presentation Outline
Steve Dunn:
Our first topic will be an overview of the program. We will cover each of the two topic areas, 1. The Retrofit Rampâ€"up Program, and 2. The General Innovation Fund which is intended for local governments that were ineligible for formula awards under the block grant program. We will discuss Limitations on the Use of Funds, Important Dates, including before voluntary letters with the intent to apply by the application deadline. We will discuss the Application Evaluation Process including the merit review criteria and how DOE will evaluate each application, and then provide answers to Frequently Asked Questions and now I will turn it over to Johanna for the program overview.
Next Slide: Program Overview
Johanna Zetterberg:
Thank you Steve, this is Johanna Zetterberg from the Weatherization and intergovernmental program office here at the Department of Energy. We administer this block grant program in addition to the state energy program and the weatherization assistance program. I'm just going to walk you through right now a little bit of an overview of this program it was authorized in energy independence and security act of 2007 and it was given funding through the American recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 so we are in the first year of this program. The purposes are to assist state local and tribal governments in implementing strategies to reduce fossil fuel emissions, reduce total energy use, and improve energy efficiency in the transportation building and other appropriate sectors so really across your entire community and because the appropriations for this program came through the recovery act we have the additional purposes to spur economic growth, and create, and retain jobs.
So today we are focusing on the competitive portion of this program over 2.7 billion dollars in formula funds have been available and today we are talking about the up to 454 million available for competitive grants.
Next Slide: Program Goals
Johanna Zetterberg:
Ideally program goals for these competitive grants are really to support activities that move us beyond traditional public awareness campaigns, demonstration projects and other onetime initiatives. We really speak to stimulate investments which can fundamentally and permanently transform energy markets and make energy efficiency and renewable energy a really business as usual and the option of first choice for new investments in energy. We also seek to seed programs, these would be your programs that you will be proposing to us that will continue beyond the grant funding period and incorporate viable strategy for program sustainability into their overall plan so that these investments that we are making now will last for years to come and will hopefully snowball into even greater initiative than what we started off with and I do have here John Athcison who is just going to join us for a moment from our office and speak a little bit to the opportunity that is before us and before you with these grants. John!
John Atchison:
Well I just want to urge you all to be extremely creative and take advantage of this, this is truly a onetime only opportunity. Funds of this magnitude with this degree of flexibility with this kind of purpose are virtually unprecedented, so we invite you to be creative. You can have the opportunity to make tremendous difference in your community 70% of every dollar you spend on energy is exported to the community and lost forever, adversely a dollar retained in the community can have a multiplier effect of three bucks for each dollar spent. These are the kind of differences you can make for your community. We also encourage you to think about game changers things that transform the way decisions are made, investments are made, the way economic assessments are made to really break the mold. Because this will give you and us the opportunity to forge truly new and truly ground breaking programs that will re-write the way America addresses its energy needs and satisfy its energy needs in a way that moves us all towards the state of prosperity and growing economy and I think this is again an unprecedented opportunity. We are urging you to think beyond the conventional strategies that we typically do and we are interested in encouraging unique game changing ideas. We would love to see people proposing things we haven't thought of, that's the point of this. So again think broadly, be creative and I think this gives you an opportunity to become true leaders nationally and in your own communities and I think we would all benefit if we take that kind of tactics we begin to develop programs and responses.
Johanna Zetterberg:
Thank you very much John for setting the stage for us as we now will jump into the rest of the webinar. I certainly hope that you all listening agree with the approach that John just laid out. So let's talk a bit about what competitive grants are. Many of you are probably familiar with the formula grants under this program. Certainly many of you have benefited from those.
Next Slide: Competitive Grants
Johanna Zetterberg:
These grant however, are different they are awarded on a competitive bases, which means there's a finite amount of awards available under each topic area which we will discuss very soon and applicants really compete against each other for that limited funding. So unlike the formula grants no entity is entitled to an allocation or a specific amount of funding. Award recipients will be selected based on the merits of their proposals and we will go over the merit review criteria for these topics under this funding opportunity announcement later on in the presentation. Applicants must follow all application instructions and you won't be provided an opportunity to revise or amend an application like you have been under the formula part of the program if you've participated in that. Finally and we will repeat this message throughout the presentation, it's critically that you read the FOA which is short hand for the Funding Opportunity Announcement thoroughly before you submit an application, so that you are very well versed with everything that is required and really familiar with the content and what DOE is looking for so that you will be positioned to compete well for these grants.
Next Slide: Funding and Timing
Johanna Zetterberg:
Ok let's go over just an overview of the funding and timing. The total funding available under this opportunity is up to $453.72 million dollars. Under topic area #1 which is Retrofit Ramp-up Program there is up to $390.04 million dollars available and under topic area #2 which is the General Innovation Fund we have up to $63.68 million dollars available. Two very important dates for you to mark on your calendars now are November 19th and December 14th. November 19th is the date that DOE request you submit a letter of intent to us if you do intend to apply and this will be helpful for us for our planning purposes and applications are due by December 14th at 11:59PM eastern time, so please make note of those two very important dates there will not be any extensions on these dates and you will need to get us your material by those dates they are hard deadlines. I'm going to turn the presentation now over to Collin McCormick.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Retrofit Ramp-up Program
Collin McCormick:
Thanks Johanna. This is Collin McCormick from the office of energy and efficiency renewable energy and I will be talking to you now about topic area #1 which is the Retrofit Ramp-up Program. Before I get started I'd just like to echo what John said a few moments ago, this is an unprecedented program and we at DOE is very excited about it and we are very much looking forward to creative and innovative applications that franklin are things that we haven't thought of. We know that there are tremendously smart people out there and we look forward to learning good ways to run retrofit program from the application were going to get with this funding opportunity announcement.
So to discuss the retrofit ramp-up program, I will go into a few details here. DOE anticipates the awarding between 8 and 20 awards under this topic area. The funding is going to range we anticipate between 5 and 75 million dollars per award which will run up to a total of about $390 million dollars. Again the letter of intent is requested by November 19th, it is optional but it can be extremely brief and it allows us to plan for a robust and effective merit review process so we do request that you do submit that letter of intent. Again applications are due on December 14th and that is a hard deadline.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Overview
Collin McCormick:
I would like to talk at this point about what DOE is seeking under topic area number #1. DOE is seeking proposals that are going to enable programs of energy retrofits for large numbers of residential, commercial, industrial, and or public buildings in geographically focused areas. So we are using the term whole neighborhood retrofits and I will describe and discuss that concept a little bit more, later in this presentation. DOE is looking for proposals that can deliver verified energy savings. DOE is looking for proposals that are going to achieve a high ratio of leveraging. We have established a goal of having $5 dollars leveraged per $1 dollar in grant funds. We received a lot of questions on what that leveraging means and I will come back to that later in more detail in the presentation. We are seeking proposals that are going to incorporate a sustainable business model which is going to allow these programs that we are seeding with our grant funds to continue to deliver building retrofits after our DOE grant funds are exhausted. I will revisit that and discuss some possible strategies that applicants could use for those programs later in the presentation. We are looking for proposals that are going to be replicable and scalable across the nation, these programs that we are looking to fund we are hoping they can become model programs for other communities around the country that are interested in programs of building retrofits we want those in our communities to be able to learn from programs that we will fund under this funding opportunity announcement. Finally we are seeking proposals that are going to include the support of multiple partners. Those partners can include the state and local government, utility, regional organizations, private business, financial institutions, universities, nongovernmental organizations, and others. Partnership is an important factor.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Overview
Collin McCormick:
From this slide I would like to talk about what we are not looking for, to clarify this as much as possible. First of all under this topic area we are not looking for proposals that propose anything other than the building retrofit programs this is relatively narrowly targeted. Second of all we are not looking for proposals that are going to propose the design and construction of new buildings energy efficient or otherwise. This is about retrofits. We are not looking for proposals that are going to demonstrate technologies but not include a market transformation component. We are not looking for proposals that are going to focus exclusively or largely on renewable energy technologies for buildings. I do want to clarify however, that we will consider cost effective renewable integration with energy efficiency retrofits to buildings. We are not looking for proposals that are going to take existing policies and programs and make only incremental improvements over a scenario of business as usual as John outline originally and as I tried to touch on again we are looking for innovative and game changing proposals. Finally we are not looking for proposals that won't be ready for immediate implementation upon awarding of funds.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Key Concepts
Collin McCormick:
So now I would like to talk a little about the key concepts that we are discussing in topic area one. First of all neighborhoods, we've certainly gotten a lot of questions on this. We are using the term neighborhoods in a generic sense. First of all it doesn't necessarily have to be a continuous area it can be multiple locations in the applicant's jurisdiction. We do want the neighborhood to include a significant percentage of buildings, that's again residential, commercial, industrial, and or public buildings that are in that fine area or areas. The neighborhoods, that's again generic neighborhoods can be in a urban, suburban or rural area and ultimately what DOE is interested in here are proposals that is going to incorporate an aggregating principal for building retrofits. So the neighborhood concept here can be based on different aggregating principal than pure geography if that is going to result in economy scales and critical mass for delivering building retrofits. There is more information on page 9 of the funding opportunity announcement and I certainly urge you to take a look at that.
Verified energy savings concepts, in this topic area DOE is defiantly interested in energy savings retrofits that are verified by utility billing analysis so proposals should indicate how they are going to secure access to at least a representative sample of fuel consumption information from buildings that are retrofitted under the program. We are going to be issuing more guidance soon about the evaluation measurement and verification guidelines under this program.
Program sustainability, we've touch on his concept before I would just like to expand a little bit. We are interested in programs that are going to be able to continue beyond the ending of the funds that we are awarding under this funding opportunity announcement and those are going to be programs that do have and including an appropriate set of finance and revenue strategies, I will touch on that again briefly later in the presentation. There is a little bit more information found on page 10 of the funding opportunity announcement.
The leveraging concept, first of all I would like to clarify that this is not a cost share requirement and cost share letters are not required under this funding opportunity announcement. So instead we are intending for this leveraging to be inclusive for the purposes of this FOA. We are going to consider leveraging to include direct contribution for partners, in-kind contributions, building owner contributions, any revenue that come into the program, any state or local government fund, and any other federal funds including other DOE funds that are available to meet the expenses of the program. I would like to underline that any private funds that come into the program will also be considered as part of that leveraging total. We had some questions about leveraging amounts that change in various years of the program. In general we will consider an average leveraging amount when we consider the total leveraging available to the program.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Award and Eligibility
Collin McCormick:
So I would like to touch on again the award and the eligibility issues. The award size once again between $5 million to $75 million anticipated and we anticipate between 8 and twenty awards. The eligible applicants under this topic area #1 are first of all states and that category includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgins Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Eligible applicant's under this topic area also includes formula eligible units of local governments, formula eligible Indian tribes and entities that are eligible to apply under topic area #2 and we are going to come back to that later in the presentation and any Governmental, quasi-governmental, or non-governmental not-for- profit organizations that are authorized by and are applying on behalf of any of the above. To get a list of formula eligible entities you can go to our website eecbg.energy.gov.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Generic Examples
Collin McCormick:
To help guide people applying for this funding opportunity announcement we prepared several generic examples. We hope these are helpful, they are trying to illustrate the scope program design that we are looking for I do want to emphasize that there not intended to indicate any preference on our part for a particular approach. We fully expect to get applications that have approaches that we haven't thought of and we think those will be terrific. So these are three examples I would like to talk briefly through, they are available in more detail of the funding opportunity announcement and there are more in the funding opportunity announcement for you to take a look at to understand the scope of program design we are interested in.
Under example #1: A community could partner with a bank and a large construction related to develop a retrofit program that will be based on property assist clean energy loans for homeowners; these are loans to do retrofit work where the home owner repays the loan on their property taxes. So in this example the community is using the DOE funds to leverage 5 to 1 additional outside funds from a number of sources and it than marketed to homeowners in the community who agree to participate in the property tax repayment process. I will note here that property assessed clean energy loans if they are going to be programs that run property assessed clean energy loans using funding under this funding opportunity announcement will be required to follow best practices guidelines developed by the federal government, those are available on our website at eecbg.energy.gov and at other websites.
Example #2: this is an example in which communities are going to partner with the local utility and a home performance with energy star partner. This community has developed a community retrofit program that's funded by a revolving loan fund with an on-bill loan repayment mechanism, so this is a situation in which the community is going to use its DOE funding to leverage 5 to 1 additional outside funds and use this on-bill repayment mechanism for homeowners to repay a loan they received in a way that offsets or partially offsets the savings to their utility bills from the retrofit program. So this community will work with this home performance with energy start partner and utility and home performance contractors working under the home performance energy star partner would deliver the retrofits with a variety of contractors.
So example #3: this community has developed a proposal where it works with a state department of commerce and an energy services company or a ESCO, this community is going to retrofit retail buildings in the downtown district, and industrial buildings in a separate district. So DOE funds that are awarded under this funding opportunity announcement are used to leverage outside funds and the program is then marketed by the state department of commerce and the applicant to local businesses in the community. Energy savings that are delivered by those retrofits which are delivered by the ESCO are then displayed on signs in store windows and community leaders initiate a campaign that's going to encourage people in that community to shop in stores that have achieved high savings and buy products from facilities in the community that also achieved high energy savings. So again the funding opportunity announcement on page 11 has those and other example in greater detail.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Financing/Revenues
Collin McCormick:
So, on this slide I would like to talk briefly about some of the possible financing and revenue strategies that applicants could use. At this point we are only going to be able to briefly touch on them and guide you to other resources. DOE will be holding a series of webinars after this one to discuss energy financing opportunities and guidelines and I will touch on the schedule for those and how to sign up for those in just a few minutes.
First of all I already discussed Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans. These are loans that are repaid through property tax mechanisms and again all PACE loan programs are required to follow federal best practices which are posted at the URL (http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/PACE_Principles.pdf) displayed on your screen right now.
Second of all on-bill financing, I've mentioned that as well. This is another mechanism that allows repayment of loans to be streamlined; they are repaid on utility bills which party offset the average savings that a consumer would see from the retrofit. We think that program applicants might be interests in looking at white tagged and energy savings certificates. These are used to sell energy savings into efficiency markets and to learn more about that we have a URL (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/45970.pdf) on your screen that points you to a report that will hopefully guide you further in understanding about those opportunities.
We also think it may useful for program applicants to think about Forward Capacity Markets with the possibility of selling efficiencies into electric capacity markets. It would be useful for applicants who are thinking about this to take an opportunity to familiarize themselves with FERC Order 719; and we provided you with the URL (http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/competition.asp), on the screen to learn more about that.
Finally, we think there may be opportunities for carbon offset trading from efficiencies gained through these building retrofit programs.
Next Slide: Topic Area #1 Future Webinars
Collin McCormick:
So, on this slide I would like to just quickly touch on the future webinars that DOE is going to offer. We are fully aware that not all applicants are energy finance experts and were going to do what we can to support you in learning more about energy finance opportunities. On November 12th there is going to be a Financial Landscape webinar. On November 18th where going to have a webinar on Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing and in December we will have several more webinars that touch on other finance areas. To sign up for those and see the schedule you can visit our Technical Assistance Solution center that's at eecbg.energy.gov.
So now I would like to hand it over to Carole to talk about Topic area #2 The General Innovation fund.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 The General Innovation Fund
Carole Reed:
Thanks Colin, Hello everyone my name is Carole Reed I am also in the office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy here in headquarters at DOE. Topic area #2 comes out of the U.S.C. Statue of requirements which reserves 2% of the allocations for those local governments that were not eligible direct formula grants. We expect under this general innovation fund that we would award 15 â€" 60 awards. The size of the projects are smaller between $1 million to $5 million, again we are referring just to the DOE portion for up to $64 million dollars. I just want to remind everyone of the important dates once more, again we are asking for voluntary letters of intent for those applicants for this topic and it has the same hard deadline for the application of December 14th.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Overview
Carole Reed:
I want to emphasize what DOE is asking for under this program, again were similar things that John and Collin talked about. We are looking for innovative programs not one of project technologies or demonstrations. We are following the same themes of innovative projects that are scalable, that can be replicable, and that have the potential to live beyond the DOE funding period. So we are looking for proposals that first of all propose eligible activities that are part of the east of statue and we will cover that in a little bit. We want projects again to contribute to meaningful and sustainable market transformation; again we are not just looking for one off project of technology demonstration. We want to have projects that highly leverage the DOE financial assistance. I want to emphasize that we did not specify a particular leverage ratio as topic #1 did but we are encouraging projects that leverage as much DOE funding as possible. Again we are looking for new and innovative approaches that are scalable, replicable and can be adopted by other local communities.
Now I want to talk about what we are not seeking in this topic area. Similar to topic area #1 we are not looking for the design or construction of new energy efficient building. We are not looking for incremental programs such as; technology demonstrations without any market transformation. We are not looking for any program s that focus exclusively or largely on renewable energy technologies for buildings, however the same caveat applies, DOE will consider cost effective renewable that are integrated projects that have a high degree of energy efficiency and conservation. I just want to repeat again that we are talking about programs that are not just incremental improvements or just business as usual and similar to the retrofit program we are looking for projects that can be implemented quickly not just in the planning stage.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Eligible Activities
Carole Reed:
Here we listed some eligible activities that we are looking for and these again come from the U.S.C. Statue. I want to emphasize that we are also looking for developing energy retrofits that as with topic #1 but we expressively made this topic area more broad but again the same kinds of programs that are highly leveraged and are scalable and replicable, innovative and they have potential to last beyond the funding period. So we look forward to all of the innovative ideas that will come under this topic area and I express we want it to be not as prescriptive as possible.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Award and Eligibility
Carole Reed:
To repeat the awards again and these are smaller projects $1 million to $5 million and that we expect to award 15 to 60 projects. Who is eligible to apply to this topic area, again this comes from the statue, these are local, units of local governments and state recognized Indian tribes that were not eligible for the direct formula grant. We also encouraging consortia of these units of local government also of any governmental, quasi-governmental, or non-governmental, or not for profit that has been authorized by DOE on behalf of any of these local governments is also eligible to apply. I also want to emphasize again that anybody who is eligible for topic #2 can also apply if you have two opportunities to apply for this funding opportunity announcement. So now I will hand it over to Johanna who will talk about some of the limitations on the use of funds.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Limitations on the use of Funds
Johanna Zetterberg:
Thanks Carole and thanks Collin those were great overview of our two topic areas and now I would like to address some of the limitations on these funds that you will need to plan around and incorporate in your proposals to us. The first want to underscore the two key points. One is that the limitations that you will see are really based on the identity of the funds recipient so regardless of which topic area you might apply under or what type of programs you might propose these limitations will follow you because of your identity as a state or a formula eligible or in-eligible local government, or tribe. The second point is that for application with multiple partners these restrictions apply to the portion of funds under that whole award that you would receive as a partner in that partnership structure. Ok so let's walk through this table. There is a limit on administrative expenses including the cost of reporting that applies to the state and that cap is not more than 10% of the amount provided to the state, this cap does apply also to formula eligible unit of local governments and tribes and that cap is not more than the greater of either 10% of the amount provided to the entity or seventy-five thousand dollars. There is no limit on administrative expenses for formula ineligible local governments or tribes. Let's move to the second row here in gray, the limit that can be used to establish a revolving loan fund, there is no limit here for states, there is a limit for formula eligible local governments or tribes which is the greater of 20% of the amount provided to the entity or $250,000 and I will just note that funds used to establish a revolving loan fund does include the funds that are used to capitalize or finance that fund as well. As you can see there is no limits for establishing a revolving loan fund for formula ineligible local government or tribes and then finally there is a requirement that funds provide to states only that not less than 60% of those funds provided to a state must be sub-granted to formula ineligible units of local governments that are within that state. There is no sub-grants requirements for local governments or tribes whether there formula eligible or not.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Important Dates
Johanna Zetterberg:
Ok now we are going to go back over the important dates, they are so important we like to repeat them. Many of you on the call here are probably aware that we had released a request for information and we did get over 350 comments, so thank you to everyone who provided comments. The RFI however did close on September 28th so we are no longer accepting comments through the RFI. Those comments were used for our consideration in creating this FOA which is now open, as you know it did open on October 19th. As we mentioned earlier the optional letter of intent to apply, we would like to receive those from you by November 19th you can of course submit them anytime from now until November 19th so if you know you are going to apply feel free to send them in now and we need to receive those at the email address that you see on your screen which is FOA148@emcbc.doe.gov that is the only address and way that you can submit your letters of intent to us. As we mentioned a few times the applications are due by December 14th at 11:59Pm eastern time and that is a hard deadline. So if you are considering applying there are several actions that you need to get started on right away. One is to download and read the FOA thoroughly. Two, you need to register with Fed Connect if you are not already registered. Three as questions come up for you in the process you will need to submit those questions to us through FedConnect that is the only way that DOE will provide an official response to you and answer your question and actually as we are talking her I see lots of questions coming in our Q&A box through the webinar software here and we will not be answering these questions. If you have an outstanding question at the end of the presentation please go ahead and submit it through FedConnect so that we can answer it for you and then finally you will need to get started planning your proposal and preparing your application. I'm going to hand it back over to Carole.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Application Evaluation Process
Carole Reed:
Thanks Johanna, Ok now at a high level I am going to talk about the application evaluation process because this is a competitive FOA so its structured somewhat differently than the formula grants and I refer you to two sections of the FOA, section 4 really talks about how your applications are structured and the various pieces that will contain and then refer to section 5 which will talk about in detail on this merit review and have all the detailed merit review criteria program policy factors and all the various processes involved.
In general there are really three main steps to the evaluation process. When we receive your applications which are due by December 14th, the first step is the initial compliance review and what we are looking for is really four main items. We are looking to see if the applicant is eligible for a award, that the information required by our FOA has been submitted and that all mandatory requirements have been satisfied and that the FOA has an idea really responsive to the scope of work that we detailed in the topic that you applied for either topic #1 or topic #2. Those applications that are due compliant will then be sent forward for the merit review selection process and in this process we are talking about having panels of experts who will rate the application on how it address the merit review criteria.
So each topic will be mapped to the criteria of its topic. So this involves a thorough consistent objective examination of the application based on these criteria that are in the funding opportunity announcement by independent expert. What comes out of this is that the experts will rank order the applications and each topic area by the highest rated to the lowest and the top level applications that are deemed technically viable are sent forward to the selection official.
The selection official will make decisions on what projects are awarded based of course these merit review results and than program policy factors as applicable and also availability of funds and I encourage you look over the whole FOA but in particular again section 4 of the FOA talks about the structure of your application and all the various pieces of information you have to include and section 5 talks about in detail the merit review criteria and all having to do with how your application will be evaluated. In brief the merit review criteria will be talked about next on pages 37-40 of this document.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Application Evaluation Process Compliance Review
Carole Reed:
I would like to next talk about in a little more detail about the compliance review because this is very important because both applications that do not pass the compliance review are basically eliminated from the competition they will not undergo a merit review so it's important for everyone to understand it. Again for both topics #1 and #2 any program that fully proposes a strategy or technical consultant of services to develop a strategy will be deemed non-responsive. Again we are looking for programs that are well formed and ready to be implemented we are not just looking for strategies.
We mentioned this before in the programs that talk about the design and structure of new energy buildings are non-responsive. We talked that technology demonstrations without market transformation will be considered not compliant and then programs which focus on exclusively and largely on renewable energy technologies for building. Again the caveat is that DOE will consider those programs that incorporate renewable energy as part of a comprehensive program that stresses energy efficiency and conservation. For topic #1 only programs that do not specifically target building retrofits will be deemed non-responsive, again I want to stress that programs that are non-responsive will not go forward to the merit review section they will be removed from the competition.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Application Evaluation Process
Carole Reed:
Now I will discuss in brief the merit review process for each of the topics. Topic #1 the Retrofit Ramp-up Program, it has 4 merit review criteria and I just listed the high level, again I encourage you to look at the FOA to see the detail descriptions of these merit review criteria which cover leveraging and sustainability, project impact, approach of the project, and the partnership structure and capability, all of these are equally weighted. Selection official can then use the following program policy factors to select the project that were highly technically indentified by the merit review committees. These include a diversity of awards including multiple locations, climates of program structures; the impact on reducing property owner's risk of loan default by reducing their energy bills, the adoption of updated building codes this only applies to prime applicants that have the authority to adopt building codes by the closing date of the FOA. This covers both residential and commercial building codes and again please refers to the FOA for specifics on this particular criteria. Since this is funded by The Recovery Act we are also looking for projects that specifically target job creation and or preservation and economic recovery in an expeditious manner. Also we are considering the impact on and benefits to a diversity of communities including low income and rural communities.
Next Slide: Topic Area #2 Application Evaluation Process
Carole Reed:
For topic #2 the merit review criteria are similar, for topic #2 we have three merit review criteria. One on project impact which is rated 50% of the score, Project Approach and Partnership Structure and Capabilities are both equally rated at 25% of the score. The program policy factors are similar to that of topic #1 a diversity of awards including multiple locations, climates and program structures. We are also looking from, that comes from the U.S.C Statue, and we are looking for applications from local governments located in states of populations of less than 2 million people or that plan to carry out a project that will result in significant energy efficiency improvements and reductions in fossil fuel use. Again from the recovery act we are stressing job creations and then we are also again talking about consideration on the impact and benefits to the diversity of communities including low income and rural communities. At this point I am going to turn it over to Karen Bahan, a contracting officer and we will start to go over some of the frequently asked questions that we have submitted and received through FedConnect thus far.
Next Slide: Frequently Asked Questions?
Karen Bahan:
Thanks Carole, This slide provides a link to the FedConnect system and also the user guide for FedConnect. Because this is competive program information provided by DOE to one party must be provided to all parties that mean you have to submit your questions through FedConnect. In order to do that you need to be registered in the system and obviously logged onto the system to submit your questions. Please don't submit your questions by phone or email because if you do so you will just be re-directed back through FedConnect and please do not submit proposal ideas in the form of a question because DOE cannot comment on proposal ideas under a competitive program.
Carole Reed:
One of the theme of questions we've been receiving is what characteristics would a strong proposal have? And this applies to both topic # and topic #2. Again I hope you appreciate the theme we have been trying to stress all afternoon, Is we are looking for both topics of very innovative programs beyond business as usual. We are talking about programs that maximize the creation and retention of jobs for the United States. We are looking for programs that are not just at the planning stage but are ready for implementation. They highly leverage grant dollars. They are broadly replicable and scalable and have the potential to make the impact at the regional and national level. These are programs that comprise innovative partnerships including a diversity of applicable partners and another theme is that for both programs we are looking for projects that have the potential self sustaining beyond the funding period, that is an important them for this FOA.
Steve Dunn:
OK thanks Carole; this is Steve Dunham I am just going to cover the Recovery Act requirements in the FOA.
Question: We have been asked if the Davis-Bacon wage requirements, Buy American Provision, the Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act will apply to the EECBG competitive grants?
Answer: The answer is yes. The full set of recovery act for reporting the terms and conditions, special terms and conditions will apply to the EECBG Competitive Grant. You can find this information on page 23 of the FOA under section H: General Information, which has information on the special terms and conditions and a link to the special provisions that are incorporated through the Recovery Act on the DOE website. The national environmental policy act or NEPA for short which many of you are familiar with if you been involved in the formula grants requires the Department of Energy to consider the environmental aspects resulting from federal actions including providing financial assistance and NEPA has been incorporated into the FOA we are asking each applicant to complete appendix C which is found on page 54 of the FOA. Appendix C requires a environmental summary, we are asking applicant to provide information addressing environmental issues, concerns and impacts potentially associated with proposed plans, programs and projects. DOE will be considering environmental impacts during the merit review process for topic #1 of criterion three includes environmental factors and criterion #2 for topic #2. We are asking applicants to demonstrate whether and how they have a compliance plan for all environment and health facing and permeating compliance issues for consideration by DOE and the NEPA review. So now I'm going to turn it over to Johanna to talk about multiple applications.
Johanna Zetterberg:
Thanks Steve, we have gotten some frequently asked questions the submission of multiple applications. So let's go through these questions now.
Question: Can entities that are eligible for both Topic Areas submit an application under each topic area?
Answer: The answer to that is yes you can.
Question: Can entities that are eligible submit multiple applications under the same Topic Area?
Answer: Yes again you can do that.
Question: Can an entity be a partner on more than one application?
Answer: Once again, yes you can do that.
In all of these cases we would just need to receive separate and stand alone applications. You would not be able to bundle multiple applications under one application.
Ok now I'm going to go through the definitions of the entities that are eligible to apply.
Question: What is a "state"?
Answer: A State under this program means the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and the Territories of the United States: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Question: What is a "Formula-eligible unit of local government"?
Answer: This is a unit of local government that was eligible for direct formula funding under the formula part of this program and you can click on the link that you see on your screen now (http://www.eecbg.energy.gov/grantalloc.html) for a list of who was eligible, we have a map that you can click on and each state will take you to a Excel spreadsheet that will show you exactly who was eligible for formulas funds in that states. You can alternatively look at attachment A of the formula funding opportunity announcement which is located on our website www.eecbg.energy.gov.
So the "Unit of local government" means: A city or city-equivalent municipality such as a town or village, a county or county-equivalent such as a parish that you would find in the state of Louisiana or a consolidated city/county government. We have gotten lots of questions about special service districts that are units of local that are considered to be such, in some cases, but for the purposes of this program you really need to be a city or a county or a equivalent of those. However, there is no reason why you wouldn't be able to be a partner on a application with a eligible entity. So just to be clear school districts are not eligible units of local government. If you would like more detailed information on these definitions you can go to the formula methodology which is available at the link at the bottom of this slide (http://www.eecbg.energy.gov/about/FAQ.html).
Question: What is a "formula-ineligible unit of local government?
Answer: So this would be a city or county that meets the criteria that are laid out on this slide and I will run through them very briefly.
- You need to be listed in the 2007 Governments Integrated Directory (GID) as an incorporated entity; that is a US census publication
- You need to be identified by the 2007 Census of Governments as having a governance structure consisting of an elected official and governing body;
- You need to have a governing structure that meets these sub criteria and basically reference your ability implement the program and then finally,
- Your will need to be ineligible for the direct formula funding under the EECBG program
Question: What is a "formula-eligible tribe"?
Answer: The short answer this, it is a federally recognized tribe. This is the long answer on your screen. I'm not going to read it, you can read it at you leisure later. By the way these slides are posted now on the eecbg.energy.gov website under the Solution Center, in the webcasts section. So no or immediately following this presentation you can download these slides. So a list of formula eligible tribes is also on our website you can click on the link here www.eecbg.energy.gov/tribealloc.html.
Question: What is a "formula-ineligible" tribe?
Answer: Well it's a state-recognized tribe that was not eligible for formula funds and in order to establish eligibility State-recognized Tribe, you will need to submit verifiable documentation from one or more States in which the Tribe resides that it is formally recognized as having self-governance authority.
I hope that clears up a lot of your question about who is eligible. Now I'm going to turn it back over to Collin.
Collin McCormick:
Thanks, Johanna. I would like to revisit one last time the leveraging fund. We have gotten a lot of questions on it. So the FAQ at the moment is:
Question: Are leveraged funds required?
Answer: The answer is No; there is no minimum requirement for leveraged funds and I will emphasize again that these leveraged funds are not cost shared and there is no cost shared letter required however the leveraging of funds is the merit review criteria and it carries substantial weight for both Topic 1 and Topic 2. So those are available on page 37 of the funding opportunity announcement and we urge you to take a look at the wording of that. Again as I mentioned earlier for the purposes of this funding opportunity announcement we are going to consider leveraging to include partner contributions, in-kind contributions, any revenues from the project, any other federal funds which can include other DOE funds, and any state funds and any that are available from private sources that are going to be available to meet the expenses of the project. So just briefly for example, a program that was going to leverage DOE Weatherization Assistance Program funds and some associated resources could potentially constitute one example of a source of leveraged funds.
Next Slide: Future Webinars
Collin McCormick:
I've shown this slide before but I would just like to point your attention to it one last time. Again we are aware that not everyone is an expert on energy finance. We will be hosting a series of webinars on energy finance beginning November 12th you can see the schedule and sign up for those webinars at eecbg.energy.gov and I will make one more comment about that website. We do have FAQ's and answers posted on that website and as we receive more questions through the FedConnect process we will be posting those FAQ's and the answers to those questions at the same eecbg.energy.gov website.
Announcer:
Thanks Colin, we would like to thank everyone today for participating in today's webinar. We really appreciate your interest in the competitive grants program and encourage everyone to submit applications. Questions may be submitted again as we explained through the FedConnect system that website is www.fedconnect.net, there is a user's guide available to explain the process for registering in FedConnect and for submitting questions and receiving the responses and there is also email support for it available through FedConnect if you have question about submitting the questions. If you have submitted questions since out today's webinar again as Johanna explained we will not be answering those so we would ask that you please resubmit those through FedConnect so that everyone has the opportunity to view those questions and the responses from DOE.