The U.S. Department of Energy on Oct. 31 issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for up to $100 million in federal funding to refurbish and modernize the nation’s existing coal power plants.
It follows the Department’s September announcement of its intent to invest $625 million to expand and reinvigorate America’s coal industry. The effort will support practical, high-impact projects that improve efficiency, plant lifetimes, and performance of coal and natural gas use, DOE said.
The NOFO seeks applications for projects to design, implement, test, and validate three strategic opportunities for refurbishment and retrofit of existing American coal power plants to make them operate more efficiently, reliably, and affordably:
• Development, engineering, and implementation of advanced wastewater management systems capable of cost-effective water recovery and other value-added byproducts from wastewater streams.
• Engineering, design, and implementation of retrofit systems that enable fuel switching between coal and natural gas without compromising critical operational parameters.
• Deployment, engineering, and implementation of advanced coal-natural gas co-firing systems and system components, including highly fuel-flexible burner designs and advanced control systems, to maximize gas co-firing capacity to provide a low cost retrofit option for coal plants while minimizing efficiency penalties.
DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), under the purview of DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE), will manage projects selected under this NOFO.
Read the complete NOFO here.
The application deadline is January 7, 2026 by 5:00 PM ET.
