OpportunityTitle: Breakthroughs Enabling Thermonuclear - Fusion Energy (BETHE)
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: See Section III.A. of the FOA.
Description: Agency Overview: The Advanced Research Projects Agency &#8211; Energy (ARPA-E), an organization within the Department of Energy (DOE), is chartered by Congress in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-69), as amended by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-358) to: &#8220;(A) to enhance the economic and energy security of the United States through the development of energy technologies that result in&#8212; (i) reductions of imports of energy from foreign sources; (ii) reductions of energy-related emissions, including greenhouse gases; and (iii) improvement in the energy efficiency of all economic sectors; and (B) to ensure that the United States maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies.&#8221; ARPA-E issues this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) under the programmatic authorizing statute codified at 42 U.S.C. &#167; 16538. The FOA and any awards made under this FOA are subject to 2 C.F.R. Part 200 as amended by 2 C.F.R. Part 910. ARPA-E funds research on and the development of high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. The agency focuses on technologies that can be meaningfully advanced with a modest investment over a defined period of time in order to catalyze the translation from scientific discovery to early-stage technology. For the latest news and information about ARPA-E, its programs and the research projects currently supported, see: http://arpa-e.energy.gov/. Program Overview: Controlled fusion has long been regarded as the ideal energy source&#8211;safe, clean, and abundant. Although this promise is still unfulfilled, fusion stands on the cusp of achieving net energy breakeven. The state-of-the-art experimental fusion research device, ITER (a multi-national project being built in France), aims to reach the net-energy milestone via the lowest-scientific-risk path. ITER is an impressive undertaking and has a construction schedule spanning two decades at a capital cost of &gt;US$25B. In the late 2030s, ITER is projected to achieve 500 MWth of fusion power in 500-s pulses, a remarkable achievement that will advance fusion science and engineering. However given the long timelines and likely high capital costs to realize a grid-ready fusion demonstration, ITER alone will not lead to a timely, commercially viable energy source. ARPA-E&apos;s first fusion program, ALPHA (2015&#8211;2019), , , recognized the significant barrier that cost has become to fusion-energy development and the growing mismatch between high-capital-cost, GWe-scale fusion facilities and modern energy markets. Therefore, ALPHA focused on developing a particular class of potentially transformative fusion concepts and related technologies (i.e., pulsed, intermediate-density fusion concepts) that could significantly lower the costs both for development and eventual deployment. Concurrently, a rapidly growing number of privately funded fusion companies are pursuing diverse, mostly less-developed fusion approaches. While less scientifically mature than ITER, these concepts potentially offer reduced cost, size, complexity, and eventual nameplate (i.e., rated) generation capacity compared to the GWe-scale fusion power plants extrapolating from ITER. However, these companies face daunting technical and business/financing risks. Fusion must lower its costs of development/deployment and accelerate its development timeline to have appreciable impact this century. However, it is generally difficult for developers of attractive, lower-cost fusion concepts to secure adequate levels of funding to meet performance milestones. Firstly, there is presently no federally sponsored program to support lower-cost fusion concepts, except for the recently launched INFUSE national-laboratory voucher program ($2M total in FY19). Secondly, it is difficult to attract private funding because most of the lower-cost concepts are based on a variety of less-proven scientific and/or technological innovations relative to ITER. Although the private funding invested thus far (&gt;$1.5B into private fusion companies) demonstrates a strong market pull for lower-cost fusion concepts, it will be extremely challenging for private funding alone to realize a grid-ready fusion demonstration. This generally untenable situation for lower-cost fusion concept development is a strong motivator for this program. The program objective is to help enable an eventual grid-ready fusion demonstration with OCC
GrantorContactEmailDescription: ARPA-E CO
GrantorContactText: ARPA-E CO &lt;br/&gt;arpa-e-co@hq.doe.gov
CloseDateExplanation: The submission deadline for full applications is January 14, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. ET.  Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit their applications 48 hours in advance.