Department of Energy – CIRCUITS Grant

Accordingly, this modification:
• Inserted certain deadlines, including the deadlines for submitting questions and Full Applications. See Cover Page and Required Documents Checklist.
• Revised the following sections of the FOA to provide guidance on required application forms and the content and form of Full Applications and Replies to Reviewer Comments: Required Documents Checklist and Sections IV.D, IV.E, and IV.G of the FOA. Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the templates provided on ARPA‐E eXCHANGE (https://arpa‐e‐foa.energy.gov).
• Inserted criteria that ARPA‐E will use to evaluate Full Applications, see Section V.A.2 of the FOA.
• Inserted criteria that ARPA‐E will use to evaluate Replies to Reviewer Comments in Section V.A.3 of the FOA.
• Inserted information on the anticipated announcement and award dates, see Section V.C of the FOA.
• Inserted information concerning Full Application Notifications, see Section VI.A.3 of the FOA.
• Inserted Administrative and National Policy Requirements, see Section VI.B of the FOA.
• Inserted Reporting Requirements, see Section VI.C of the FOA.
• Clarified Rights in Technical Data, see Section VIII.H of the FOA.

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov. ARPA-E will not review or consider full applications submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx).

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov. ARPA-E will not review or consider concept papers submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx)

ARPA-E issues this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) under the programmatic authorizing statute codified at 42 U.S.C. § 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/.

Development of advanced power electronics with unprecedented functionality, efficiency, reliability, and form factor will help provide the U.S. a critical technological advantage in an increasingly electrified world economy. The CIRCUITS (Creating Innovative and Reliable Circuits Using Inventive Topologies and Semiconductors) program seeks to accelerate the development and deployment of a new class of efficient, lightweight, and reliable power converters based on wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors through transformational system-level advances that enable effective operation at high switching frequency, high temperature, and low loss. Previous efforts by ARPA-E and others have primarily focused on WBG material and device development without focused consideration and redesign of the circuit topology. Such solutions do not fully exploit the potential performance improvements enabled by this new class of power semiconductor devices. Areas of particular interest for the CIRCUITS program include novel circuit topologies, advanced control and drive electronics, and innovative packaging. Such technological breakthroughs would catalyze the adoption of higher performance power converters in various critical applications (motor drives, automotive, power supplies, data centers, aerospace, ship propulsion, rail, distributed energy, and the grid) that offer significant direct and indirect energy savings and emissions reductions across electricity generation, transmission and distribution, and load-side consumption. Coupling novel and advanced circuit topologies with leading edge materials such as WBG semiconductor devices has the capacity to catalyze disruptive improvements for power electronics and subsequently for the U.S. economy.
To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov. ARPA-E will not review or consider concept papers submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx)