Aligning Manufacturability & Pre-production Design (AMPD) for Storage Technologies | DE FOA 0003425

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0003425

The Aligning Manufacturability and Pre-production Design (AMPD) for Storage Technologies funding opportunity (DE-FOA-0003425) is a discretionary federal grant program run through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). It is aimed at pushing energy storage technologies closer to real-world manufacturing by supporting practical, pre-production design improvements that make products easier, faster, cheaper, and more reliable to build at scale. The central idea is that many storage technologies show promise in the lab but run into trouble when companies try to transition to pilot production and full manufacturing. This program focuses specifically on solving those manufacturability and design-for-manufacture issues early, so that later scale-up can happen with fewer surprises and fewer costly redesigns.

The NOFO is looking for projects that use pre-production design innovations to improve manufacturability, meaning applicants should propose work that bridges the gap between a working technical concept and something that can be produced consistently in a manufacturing environment. In practice, that often includes activities like redesigning components for simpler assembly, improving tolerance management, reducing part count, selecting materials compatible with high-throughput production, designing for automated or semi-automated processes, standardizing interfaces, improving quality-control approaches, and addressing reliability, yield, and repeatability issues that tend to appear during early production runs. The program is intended to set the stage for manufacturing scale-up that ultimately supports the energy storage needs of U.S. consumers, which ties the work to broader national goals around energy resilience, grid modernization, and domestic manufacturing readiness.

Awards are expected to be made as cooperative agreements rather than standard grants. A cooperative agreement typically means the government expects to be more actively involved in the project compared with a traditional grant, such as through technical collaboration, more structured project management, or federal participation in milestones and decision points. Applicants should anticipate a more hands-on relationship with NETL during the period of performance, with progress tracked against defined deliverables and go/no-go style milestones that keep the work aligned with program goals.

The funding parameters indicate a maximum award size (award ceiling) of $2,000,000, and the agency expects to make about four awards under this solicitation. While the total program budget is not listed in the provided data, the ceiling and the number of anticipated awards give a rough sense of the competition size and the scale of projects NETL intends to support: substantial but still focused efforts targeted at pre-production design and manufacturability improvements rather than large-scale factory buildouts. The opportunity is categorized under the Energy activity category and is associated with CFDA number 81.122, which is commonly used to track U.S. Department of Energy financial assistance programs.

Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, which generally means a wide range of applicant types may apply, such as private companies (including startups), universities, nonprofits, state or local governments, and other organizations, provided they can meet federal requirements and the specific conditions of the NOFO. Even with unrestricted eligibility, strong applications typically demonstrate a credible path to manufacturing relevance, such as access to manufacturing expertise, partnerships with manufacturers or integrators, a realistic pre-production plan, and clear evidence that the proposed design changes will materially improve manufacturability and scale-up readiness.

Key dates included in the source data show the opportunity was created on January 16, 2025, and the original application closing date is March 17, 2025. Applicants planning to pursue this funding would need to work backward from that deadline to allow time for required registrations, compliance checks, teaming agreements, and development of a strong technical and management plan.

In short, AMPD is about making energy storage technologies more manufacturable before companies reach expensive pilot and commercial production stages. It funds targeted, engineering-driven pre-production design work that reduces manufacturing risk, improves producibility and consistency, and positions storage technologies for successful scale-up to meet U.S. market needs, with NETL playing an active role through the cooperative agreement structure.

• The National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Aligning Manufacturability & Pre-production Design (AMPD) for Storage Technologies" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.122.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-01-16.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-03-17. (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 $2,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 4 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

Apply for DE FOA 0003425

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