Frequent Questions about the Fund
Included below are frequently asked questions about the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF), Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA) and Solar for All (SFA). NCIF and CCIA selections were announced on April 4, 2024. Solar for All selections were announced on April 22, 2024. If you have additional questions to consider including on this page, please email GGRF@epa.gov.
Last updated: April 18, 2024
To see program-specific frequently asked questions, visit the NCIF Frequently Asked Questions page , CCIA Frequently Asked Questions page and the Solar for All Frequently Asked Questions page.
Program Overview
Where does the funding for the GGRF come from?
The $27 billion in funding comes from appropriations made in the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act amends the Clean Air Act to include Section 134 (42 USC § 7434), which authorizes the EPA to make competitive grants under the NCIF, CCIA, and SFA. The NCIF is funded with $11.97 billion from Section 134(a)(2) and $2.00 billion from Section 134(a)(3). The CCIA is funded with $6.00 billion from Section 134(a)(3). SFA is funded with $7.00 billion from Section 134(a)(1). $30 million was appropriated for administrative costs.
Program Logistics
If I am interested in obtaining funding for a project or my organization is interested in partnering with this program, who do I contact?
Please contact a recipient(s) or subrecipient(s) under the program that you hope to obtain funding from and/or partner with. In all three programs, recipients and their subrecipients will partner with a range of organizations to successfully deploy the funding under the programs.
Under these programs, EPA will not provide financial assistance directly to projects; rather EPA will provide grants to each program’s eligible recipients, and those recipients (or their subrecipients) will provide financial assistance to projects.
Please refer to the NCIF page, CCIA page, and Solar for All page for additional details, including contact information for selected applicants.
When will funding be available to communities across the country for projects?
Funding will be available after awards are made and all administrative requirements that must be satisfied before drawdown are complete. At that time, funds will be obligated and recipients will have the ability to provide funding to communities across the country.
For NCIF and CCIA:
- EPA anticipates that funding could be available as early as July 2024, which is when the periods of performance under the grants are anticipated to begin.
For Solar for All:
- EPA anticipates that awards will be made by the statutory deadline of September 30, 2024. At that time, administrative requirements will be completed on a rolling basis throughout the remainder of the calendar year.
- After administrative requirements are completed, EPA anticipates that the selected applicants will begin funding projects through existing programs and begin expansive community outreach programs to launch new programs.
What projects will be eligible to be funded by recipients and their partners?
For the NCIF and CCIA:
- Under the NCIF, each project must meet the six-part definition of a “qualified project” to be eligible for funding, as described in the respective NOFOs. The six-part definition requires each project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; reduce other air pollutants; deliver benefits to communities; meet the requirement that it may not have otherwise been financed; mobilize private capital; and support only commercial technologies.
- Under the CCIA, each project must meet the six-part definition of a “qualified project” and be within at least one of three “priority project categories:” (i) distributed energy generation and storage; (ii) net-zero emissions buildings; and (iii) zero-emissions transportation.
- Each selected applicant described the types of eligible projects it plans to fund in the narrative proposal of the application package, which can be found in the NCIF Selected Applicant Details page and the CCIA Selected Applicant Details page.
For Solar for All:
- Solar for All will support residential rooftop and residential-serving community distributed solar projects for low-income and disadvantaged households around the country.
- All Solar for All funded projects must be primarily residential solar projects, providing power and financial benefits to households nationwide.
- As Solar for All selected applicants begin launching their programs over the next year, the selected applicants will publish more information about their program strategies. EPA will publish more information on the selected applicants once awards are finalized.
Who is eligible to obtain funding from the recipients and their partners?
For the NCIF and CCIA:
- These programs will provide funding to individuals and families; small businesses and non-profit organizations; companies; state, territorial, local, and Tribal governments; and others across all communities. A subset of the funding is dedicated to low-income and disadvantaged communities. NCIF recipients are required to expend at least 40% of funds in low-income and disadvantaged communities, although all three selected applicants have committed to surpassing this requirement by a significant margin. CCIA recipients are required by law to expend 100% of funds in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
For Solar for All:
- Solar for All programs will provide funding to projects that benefit individuals and families entirely in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
- Solar for All programs will also provide technical assistance to communities, small businesses, non-profit organizations, and other stakeholders to help enable low-income and disadvantaged communities to deploy and benefit from residential solar and residential-serving community solar.
Are these programs national in scope?
For the NCIF and CCIA:
- Yes. Every program being funded under the NCIF and CCIA is national in scope. Under the NCIF, selected applicants will provide financial assistance to qualified projects all across the country. Under the CCIAlean Communities Investment Accelerator, selected applicants will provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders all across the country who will then provide financial assistance to qualified projects within the three “priority project categories.” The two programs will work together to create a national clean financing network that reaches every state and territory. Please refer to the NCIF page and CCIA page for additional details.
For Solar for All:
- Yes. The 60 selected applicants will collectively support the delivery of residential solar power for nearly 900,000 homes nationwide. This includes 49 awards to state-level entities to serve their respective state or territory, 6 awards to serve Tribes regionally or nationwide, and 5 multi-state awards to serve specific communities regionally or nationwide. Please refer to the Solar for All page for additional details.
Award Information
Do these selection announcements mean that EPA has made awards and that recipients can access funding?
No. While EPA has made selections, EPA still needs to resolve administrative disputes relating to the competition, finalize workplans, and process the selected applications in order to make awards under the programs. Once awards are made, EPA will have obligated funds under the programs, meeting the statutory deadline to obligate funds by September 30, 2024.
When will awards be made?
For NCIF and CCIA,
EPA anticipates that awards will be made by July 2024. This accords with the timeline disclosed in the respective NOFOs, in which EPA stated its anticipation that the periods of performance would begin by July 2024.
For Solar for All,
EPA anticipates that awards will be made during the summer of 2024.
When each award is made, will EPA transfer the full funding amount into a bank account at a financial institution of the recipient’s choosing?
No. EPA will not transfer the full funding amount into a bank account of the recipient’s choosing. There will be strict guardrails on funding provided by EPA to each recipient, and each recipient will be required to expend funding in accordance with the terms and conditions of their award agreement.
Will there be terms and conditions on the use of the award?
Yes. EPA has developed a set of terms and conditions for each program to provide detailed requirements on allowable uses of funds; programmatic and financial reporting; risk management standards; and oversight authorities. EPA will hold each recipient accountable to the terms and conditions of the award agreement as well as the recipient’s workplan and budget.
Application, Eligibility, and Selection
When was the open application period to submit applications?
For the NCIF and CCIA, the open application period to submit applications began on July 14, 2023, and closed on October 12, 2023. Eligible recipients were invited to apply through the respective Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for EPA-R-HQ-NCIF-23 and EPA-R-HQ-CCIA-23, which were available on Grants.gov.
For Solar for All, the open application period to submit applications began on June 28, 2023, and closed on October 12, 2023. Eligible recipients were invited to apply through the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for EPA-R-HQ-SFA-23-01, which was available on Grants.gov.
Who was eligible to apply?
For the NCIF and CCIA:
- Applicants that were eligible to receive grants under the NCIF and CCIA competitions were statutorily required to be “eligible recipients.” An eligible recipient is defined in Section 134(c) of the Clean Air Act as an organization that: (a) is a non-profit; (b) is designed to provide capital, leverage private capital, and provide other forms of financial assistance for the rapid deployment of low- and zero-emission products, technologies, and services; (c) does not take deposits other than deposits from repayments and other revenue received from financial assistance provided using grant funds under this program; (d) is funded by public or charitable contributions; and (e) invests in or finances projects alone or in conjunction with other investors.
- EPA invited eligible recipients to apply by submitting either individual applications or coalition applications, composed of one lead applicant along with coalition members that are named on the application and would receive subawards to carry out a portion of the grant’s activities (if the application were to be selected). Coalition members could have been either eligible recipients or other types of organizations eligible for subawards under the EPA Subaward Policy, including public, quasi-public, and non-profit organizations.
- Each applicant selected for an award provided evidence for how it meets the definition of an eligible recipient. Each applicant that included coalition members demonstrated that the coalition members are eligible for subawards under the EPA Subaward Policy.
For Solar for All:
- Applicants that were eligible to receive grants under Solar for All included: 1) states and territories; 2) municipalities; 3) Tribal governments; and 4) eligible non-profit recipients. Definitions for each of these are described in Section III.A: Eligible Applicants of the NOFO.
- EPA invited eligible recipients to apply by submitting either individual applications or coalition applications, composed of one lead applicant along with coalition members that are named on the application and would receive subawards to carry out a portion of the grant’s activities (if the application were to be selected). Coalition members could have been either eligible recipients or other types of organizations eligible for subawards under the EPA Subaward Policy, including non-profits, governmental entities, and Institutions of Higher Education.
- Each applicant selected for an award provided evidence for how it meets the definition of an eligible recipient. Each applicant that included coalition members demonstrated that the coalition members are eligible for subawards under the EPA Subaward Policy.
How did EPA evaluate applications and make selection decisions?
EPA evaluated each application in accordance with the process laid out in Section V: Application Review Information of the respective NOFOs. EPA evaluated each written application in accordance with the evaluation criteria disclosed in Section V.A: Evaluation Criteria, and EPA followed the review and selection process disclosed in Section V.B: Review and Selection Process. For more information on this process, please visit the Review and Selection Process page.
How did EPA make decisions on the amount of funding provided to each selected applicant?
For NCIF and CCIA:
- Given the strength of the selected applications and the amount of funding requested across those selected applications, EPA is partially funding each selected application relative to its initial funding request. Partial funding provided to each selected application is in accordance with Section II.D: Partial Funding of the respective NOFOs as well as EPA Order 5700.5A1: EPA's Policy for Competition of Assistance Agreements.
- EPA employed a consistent methodology to apportion partial funding across each of the two competitions, with higher-scoring applications generally provided with more partial funding relative to the initial funding request as compared to lower-scoring applications. Since these are financing programs that are all scalable, EPA expects that selected applicants will be able to adjust their application packages into final workplans that reflect the partial funding amounts provided.
For Solar for All:
- Given the strength of the selected applications and the amount of funding requested across those selected applications, EPA is partially funding each selected application relative to its initial funding request. Partial funding provided to each selected application is in accordance with Section II.D: Partial Funding of the respective NOFOs as well as EPA Order 5700.5A1: EPA's Policy for Competition of Assistance Agreements
- To ensure Solar for All served communities nationwide equitably, EPA partially funded all 60 selected applications the same percentage of their initial funding request. The maximum funding amount applicants were eligible to request from EPA was informed by the population in the program geography as prescribed in Section II.A: Number and Amount of Awards of the NOFO. Therefore, applications and final award amounts are roughly-sized based on population.
- All selected applicants will receive nearly two-thirds of their initial funding request. Since these are financing programs that are all scalable, EPA expects that selected applicants will be able to adjust their application packages into final workplans that reflect the partial funding amounts provided.