United States: $6 billion to fund industrial decarbonization projects, and more

The United States Governement unveiled last week a series of initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial sector, including the announcement of a $6 billion Industrial Demonstrations Program to accelerate decarbonization projects targeting hard-to-abate sectors.

The new Department of Energy (DOE)-based program, will provide up to 50% of the cost of first-of-a-kind or early-stage decarbonization projects, targeting the highest emitting industries – such as iron and steel, aluminum, cement and concrete.

To maximize the transformative potential of these funds, DOE will prioritize a portfolio of projects that:

• Accelerate industry towards deep decarbonization. By demonstrating significantly less carbon-intensive industrial production processes leading to materials that can be labeled as having substantially lower levels of embodied greenhouse gas emissions.

• Timeliness, through rapid technology demonstrations that can address emissions in the near-term, meet funding horizons, and be replicated by fast followers.

• Market viability. Enable new markets for cleaner products with technological approaches designed to spur follow-on investments for widespread decarbonization as well as partnerships between buyers and sellers of the materials produced, with special consideration given to industries that are focusing on shifting entire ecosystems and enabling new market structures for low-carbon products; and

• Community benefits, tailored through substantial engagement with local and regional stakeholders, as well as labor unions and Tribal Nations across the project lifecycle, supporting environmental justice and economic opportunity for local communities.

Interested applicants will be required to submit a Community Benefits Plan to ensure they are meaningfully engaging with the surrounding communities; creating quality jobs and investing in the American workforce; advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; and supporting environmental justice. This will help ensure these projects are not causing harm but instead providing tangible benefits to communities that too often have been left behind.

Concept papers are due by April 21, 2023, and full applications are due by August 4, 2023. Read the full funding opportunity announcement - and application form - here and learn more about the Industrial Demonstrations Program clicking at the image below.

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