Personal Comfort Systems to Reduce Building Energy Consumption | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The "Personal Comfort Systems to Reduce Building Energy Consumption" opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0000938) is not an active grant solicitation for project funding, but a Request for Information (RFI) issued by ARPA-E within the U.S. Department of Energy. Its core purpose is to gather technical input from the research and development community to help ARPA-E think through and potentially design a future program aimed at reducing the total energy used to heat and cool buildings and other structures. The specific angle ARPA-E is exploring through this RFI is the use of personal comfort systems, especially novel adaptive clothing or textile-based solutions, as a way to keep people comfortable without needing to condition entire buildings to a narrow temperature range.

The agency is essentially asking experts, companies, universities, startups, and other innovators to share ideas, opinions, and concepts that could shift comfort from being primarily a building-level function (HVAC heating and cooling) to being more person-centered. The logic behind this is straightforward: if occupants can be comfortable across a wider range of ambient temperatures by using advanced clothing systems or wearable comfort technologies, buildings may be able to operate with less aggressive heating and cooling setpoints, which can translate into significant energy savings at scale. The RFI is intended to capture what is technically plausible, what breakthroughs might be needed, what performance targets matter, how such solutions could be validated, and what barriers exist to deployment and adoption.

A key detail is that ARPA-E states the information collected may be used on a non-attribution basis, meaning respondents should not expect their names or organizations to be publicly connected to specific ideas in any subsequent summaries or program planning. Just as important, ARPA-E makes clear that this RFI does not guarantee a future funding opportunity announcement (FOA). No FOA exists at the time of this notice, and ARPA-E explicitly reserves the right to never issue one. If ARPA-E does decide to move forward with an actual funding program later, it would be released under a new FOA number, separate from this RFI.

From an administrative standpoint, the modification described in the notice only changes the deadline for submitting RFI responses. The submission due date was extended, with the current closing date set to July 26, 2013, by 8:00 PM Eastern Time (revised from an earlier July deadline). Responses were required to be submitted as a PDF by email to ARPA-E-RFI-Textiles@hq.doe.gov, and ARPA-E indicated it would not review or consider responses submitted through other methods. The opportunity is listed under the Science and Technology / Research and Development activity category, associated with CFDA number 81.135 (Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy). Although the listing includes common federal award instrument types (such as cooperative agreements, grants, and procurement contracts), this particular posting functions as an information-gathering exercise rather than a funding call, which is consistent with the listed estimated total funding and award ceiling/floor all being shown as $0.

Eligibility is broadly described as unrestricted, meaning ARPA-E was open to receiving input from essentially any type of entity, subject to any clarifications in the full text. A point of contact is provided for access issues (Krystal Paige, with an associated phone number), but substantive responses still needed to go to the designated ARPA-E textiles RFI email address. Overall, the notice is best read as ARPA-E testing the landscape for wearable or textile-based personal comfort technologies that could reduce dependence on whole-building heating and cooling, with the RFI serving as a precursor that may (or may not) lead to a future, separate competitive funding opportunity.

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