Release Date: November 17, 2009

Announcement Made on FOA DE-FOA0000099, "Recovery Act - Building America Energy Efficient Housing Partnerships"
Building Technology Funds To Be Restructured To Support "Recovery Through Retrofit" Initiative

Morgantown, W.Va. — In conjunction with Vice President Biden’s October 19, 2009, announcement of the Recovery Through Retrofit initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has decided to make no selections from Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0000099, “Recovery Act – Building America Energy Efficient Housing Partnerships.” This decision is in accordance with Section VIII – Other Information, Part B, of the FOA and applies to both Area of Interest 1, Building America Teams, and Area of Interest 2, Building America Retrofit Teams.

Since DE-FOA-0000099 was issued, a coordinated, multi-agency Recovery Through Retrofit plan has been crafted by the Council on Environmental Quality and the Vice President’s Middle Class Taskforce. That plan includes greater coordination among related programs at other agencies and within DOE. The framework put in place by Recovery Through Retrofit provides DOE an opportunity to make a greater impact with its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds than would have been possible under the strategy embodied in DE-FOA-0000099.

While DE-FOA-0000099 would have provided ARRA funds for narrowly focused work on retrofits, it did not support the breadth of activities now envisioned under Recovery Through Retrofit. As a result, the Department will be re-directing all of the ARRA funds allocated to the DOE Building Technologies Program for residential buildings to implement the Recovery Through Retrofit initiative. New ARRA-funded opportunities will be released in the near future. In addition, opportunities in support of Recovery Through Retrofit using regularly appropriated (non-ARRA) funding may also be issued in the near future.

DOE would like to thank applicants who applied under DE-FOA-0000099 for your commitment to energy efficiency and encourage you to watch for announcements of these new funding opportunities. The partnerships and work proposed under DE-FOA-0000099 may largely be relevant to some of these new funding opportunities.

The Department regrets any inconvenience resulting from this change in strategy. DOE believes the multi-agency Recovery Through Retrofit initiative will allow more effective use of taxpayer funds and significantly improve the energy efficiency of the nation’s housing stock.