Solid State Lighting Advanced Technology R&D 2017 | DE FOA 0001613

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0001613

The Solid State Lighting Advanced Technology R&D 2017 funding opportunity (DE FOA 0001613) is a Department of Energy program, administered through the National Energy Technology Laboratory, that supports research and development intended to move solid state lighting (SSL) forward in practical, market-relevant ways. SSL in this context includes both LED (light emitting diode) and OLED (organic light emitting diode) technologies. The central focus is not just incremental lab improvements, but work that can translate into better-performing, more affordable, and more reliable lighting products that people and organizations actually buy and use, while also strengthening the long-term competitiveness of U.S.-based manufacturing in the SSL sector.

A major goal of the opportunity is to push energy efficiency as far as possible in commercial SSL products. That means funding R&D that can increase how much useful light is produced per unit of electricity, and do so in a way that holds up under real-world operating conditions. Improving efficiency is framed as a direct pathway to reducing national energy consumption tied to lighting, lowering operating costs for buildings and infrastructure, and advancing broader energy and environmental priorities.

Another key emphasis is removing market barriers that slow adoption even when efficiency is strong. In practice, SSL adoption can be held back by concerns about lifetime, inconsistent performance over time, color quality, or how well a light source integrates into a complete lighting system. This opportunity explicitly targets those adoption friction points by encouraging improvements to durability and lifetime (so products last longer and fail less), better color quality (so lighting looks right for homes, workplaces, retail, healthcare, and outdoor environments), and stronger overall system performance (so the driver electronics, optics, thermal management, and controls work together reliably and predictably).

Cost reduction is also a stated objective, with attention to both SSL sources and luminaires. In other words, the program is interested not only in the cost of the LED or OLED emitter itself, but also in the full fixture and system-level components that determine the final price of an installed lighting solution. R&D that lowers material costs, simplifies manufacturing steps, improves yields, reduces waste, or enables easier assembly and scaling aligns with this objective, especially when it does not compromise quality.

The opportunity further highlights the importance of product consistency and quality. Variability between production lots, shifts in color or output, and uneven performance across product lines can undermine buyer confidence and make large deployments more difficult. By emphasizing consistency alongside high quality, the funding opportunity signals interest in technology and manufacturing advances that improve repeatability, tighter tolerances, better binning or characterization methods, and improved reliability assurance, all of which can help the market treat SSL products as predictable infrastructure rather than experimental technology.

Finally, the program explicitly ties technical progress to domestic industrial strength. It aims to encourage growth, leadership, and sustainability of U.S. manufacturing within the SSL industry. That typically means preference for projects that support U.S. know-how, supply chain resilience, and scalable manufacturing capability, helping ensure that advances in SSL do not only exist as research outputs but also translate into domestic economic activity and long-term industrial capacity.

From an administrative standpoint, this was a discretionary funding opportunity using a cooperative agreement, which generally implies active involvement by the funding agency during project execution compared with more hands-off grant structures. It was open to unrestricted applicants (meaning any entity type could apply, subject to any eligibility details in the full announcement). The opportunity was posted on October 12, 2016, and originally closed on January 10, 2017. The anticipated award ceiling was $1,500,000 per award, with an expectation of about 10 awards. The program is associated with CFDA number 81.086 and falls under funding activity areas that include energy, environment, and science and technology R&D.

• The Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy, environment, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Solid State Lighting Advanced Technology R&D 2017" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.086.
• This funding opportunity was created on Oct 12, 2016.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jan 10, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 10 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for DE FOA 0001613

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