SMARTFARM SBIR/STTR | DE FOA 0002251

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002251

The SMARTFARM SBIR/STTR opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0002251) is a competitive research and development funding announcement from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). ARPA-E was created by Congress to push forward high-potential energy technologies that are still too early for most private investment, with the broader national goals of strengthening U.S. economic and energy security, cutting energy-related emissions (including greenhouse gases), reducing reliance on imported energy, and improving energy efficiency across the economy. Awards under this announcement are issued as cooperative agreements, meaning ARPA-E expects to be actively involved during the project period, and the awards follow federal assistance rules under 2 C.F.R. Part 200 (as amended) and 2 C.F.R. Part 910.

At a practical level, SMARTFARM focuses on a major bottleneck in low-carbon biofuels: measuring and verifying greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural feedstock production at the field level. The program starts from the premise that U.S. agriculture could supply on the order of 5 quadrillion Btu of energy as biofuels, and that with improvements across the supply chain these fuels could potentially become carbon negative. But getting there depends heavily on what happens on farms, including whether producers adopt new practices and technologies that raise yields, reduce on-farm emissions tied to production, and increase carbon sequestration in soils. The problem is that farmers and feedstock producers often do not have strong incentives to optimize for carbon outcomes because current monitoring and verification approaches are too expensive and cumbersome to apply at the individual field scale.

Today, many carbon accounting and incentive systems effectively treat feedstock producers as if they all have the same emissions profile by relying on national average emissions factors. That simplification ignores the real variability that exists from one state or region to another, and especially from one field to the next, based on differences in soil, weather, inputs, management practices, and other local conditions. SMARTFARM is designed to close that data gap by funding technologies that can replace those broad averages with credible, field-level estimates of lifecycle emissions associated with feedstock production. The key output ARPA-E is looking for is the ability to quantify feedstock production lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions in units like grams of CO2-equivalent per acre, in a way that is reliable, accurate (low uncertainty), and cost-effective enough to be used at scale. The FOA highlights scalability to field sizes greater than 80 acres as an important practical target.

In terms of why ARPA-E is investing here, the underlying theory of change is that better, cheaper field-scale measurement and analytics unlock better market signals. If emissions and carbon outcomes can be verified at the field level without excessive cost, then incentive structures that already exist elsewhere in the biofuel supply chain can extend back to farmers and feedstock producers. That would make it easier to reward producers who adopt practices that reduce emissions and increase soil carbon, not just those who maximize yield. ARPA-E frames the potential impact as the creation of new market incentives for efficiency in feedstock production and carbon management, with the possibility of meaningful emissions reductions at a national level and even larger benefits if similar approaches are applied beyond biofuel feedstocks to other agricultural products.

Administratively, this opportunity was listed under CFDA 81.135, categorized as science and technology research and development, and described as having unrestricted eligibility (open to any type of entity, subject to any additional eligibility language in the full announcement). The FOA was created on December 18, 2019, with concept papers due February 19, 2020, and it projected up to about 12 awards. The listed award ceiling is $10,000,000, indicating ARPA-E anticipated funding sizeable, ambitious R and D efforts rather than small pilot-only projects.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "SMARTFARM SBIR/STTR" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on Dec 18, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 19, 2020 Concept Paper Submissions are due 2/19/2020.. (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 $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 12 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for DE FOA 0002251

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