- Section III.F. of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) states, “DOE will not make eligibility determinations for potential Applicants prior to the date on which applications to this FOA must be submitted. The decision of whether to submit an application in response to this FOA lies solely with the Applicant.”
For your purposes in making that decision, however, we provide the following information:
Per page 6 of the FOA, ““Tribally-owned or controlled building(s),” for purposes of this FOA, is a building or buildings where the eligible entity has the authority to retrofit the building and where the building is either owned by the eligible entity or tribal members, or the eligible entity has a long-term lease (at least 20 years). Buildings may include, but are not limited to, tribal member homes, schools, community buildings, clinics, tribal government buildings, utility facilities (such as water/waste water systems), tribal casinos, or tribal businesses.”
The definition of “Indian Land” is as provided on pages 17-18 and in appendix A of FOA. Specifically,
““Indian Lands,” for purposes of this Announcement, is defined as:
(a) any land located within the boundaries of an “Indian reservation” (see definition below), pueblo, or rancheria;
(b) any land not located within boundaries of an Indian reservation, pueblo, or rancheria, the title to which is held –
(i) in trust by the United States for the benefit of an Indian Tribe or an individual Indian;
(ii) by an Indian Tribe or an individual Indian, subject to restriction against alienation under laws of the United States; or
(iii) by a dependent Indian community;”
Based on these FOA requirements, it is possible that an Indian-owned home not located on the Tribe’s reservation could meet the definition of Indian Land. With only the limited information provided in your question, and in light of Section III.F. of the FOA, however, DOE will not make a final eligibility determination prior to the date on which applications must be submitted.
- As stated in #1 above, Section III.F. of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) states, “DOE will not make eligibility determinations for potential Applicants prior to the date on which applications to this FOA must be submitted The decision of whether to submit an application in response to this FOA lies solely with the Applicant.” For your purposes in making that decision, however, we provide the following information:
Based on the limited information included as part of your question, it appears you would be required to submit two separate applications as the geothermal clean energy system in a to-be-constructed Tribal facility, as described, appears to be a facility-scale system rather than community-scale. Specifically, under “Topic Area 2, DOE is seeking applications for the deployment of community-scale clean energy systems (renewable e nergy power systems or combined heat and power systems) on Indian lands to provide electricity and/or heating or cooling to many buildings or to an entire tribal community.” Please note that per the definition of “Renewable Energy System” under Appendix A of the FOA (page 75), for purposes of this FOA, “ground source heat pumps are considered an energy efficiency measure.” and are therefore not eligible under Topic Area 2.
To be eligible under Topic Area 2 as a community-scale system, “the installation of a geothermal clean energy system in a to-be-constructed Tribal facility”, as described, must meet the requirements on page 11-12 of the FOA, and included below.
(1) Be a minimum of 250 kW rated capacity (or for heating or cooling the Btu equivalent of 170,607 Btu/hr); and
(2) Affect a substantial number of buildings within a tribal community (no less than three buildings); and
(3) Use commercially-proven warrantied technology (see the definition of “commercially-proven” and “warrantied” under Appendix A).
Whereas under Topic Area 1 “tribal buildings may include a single or multiple “Tribally-owned or controlled building(s)” located on Indian Lands. All proposed installations must be for either:
(1) Existing “Tribally-owned or controlled building(s)”; or
(2) “Tribally-owned or controlled building(s)” that are currently being constructed or planned to be constructed during the proposed grant period.”
Also, per Section III.E. “Applicants may submit more than one application to this FOA or under a Topic Area, provided each application is for a distinctively different project and addresses only one Topic Area. Each application must have a distinct title, unique Control Number as assigned by EERE Exchange during the registration process, and be readily distinguishable.”