DOE anticipates that the FOA will include the following topics:

Demonstration and Deployment of Fuel Cell Hybrid-Electric Medium-Duty Trucks (up to $3M federal funding per award, 50% minimum cost share required). This topic is intended to accelerate the development and deployment of on-board, fuel cell hybrid-electric powered Class 3-6 medium-duty trucks (MD eTrucks) to increase substantially the zero-emission driving range, thereby reducing petroleum consumption and related emissions and increasing the economic viability of these electric drive vehicles.

DOE will seek new applications for projects to demonstrate and deploy fuel cell hybrid MD eTrucks at freight distribution centers, cargo distribution centers, or parcel/package distribution center sites. The specific MD eTruck vehicles of interest are commercial vehicles that deliver cargo, parcels, or packaged freight on daily routes and return to their distribution centers at the end of their daily operations.

DOE envisions up to two financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements, with a period of performance of up to five years for each award.

Validation of Advanced Hydrogen Refueling Components (up to $1.5M federal funding per award, 50% minimum cost share required). Topic 2 will demonstrate and validate the durability and robustness of hydrogen refueling components in real-world operating environments. Feedback will be provided to the DOE hydrogen and fuel cell R&D projects, industry partners, and end users to help determine what additional R&D is required to move the technology forward.

This topic seeks to validate advanced/innovative hydrogen refueling components in their intended real-world application. Proposed projects should validate advanced hydrogen refueling equipment by placing the equipment in service for an existing or planned refueling site in the US.

Advanced components to be validated under this topic area may include, but are not limited to, compressors, electrolyzers, systems co-producing electricity and hydrogen, hydrogen delivery (such as high pressure tanks for tube trailers), bulk hydrogen storage systems, and dispenser systems or components, such as flow meters, nozzles or communications systems.

DOE envisions multiple financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements, with a period of performance of up to five years for each award.

Demonstration and Case Study for Roof-top Installations of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Backup Power Systems (up to $250k federal funding per award, 50% minimum cost share required). The third topic will develop a case study for roof-top installations of fuel cell powered back-up power systems that refuel from the ground. The process of obtaining access to the building, interacting with code officials, obtaining required permits, design considerations, and operation and maintenance will be documented as a case study for informing future siting of backup power systems.

The case study is to address methods for reducing the cost of installation such as:

• including the use of components that can be installed without the use of a crane;

• the use of light-weight composite tanks to reduce the roof load or provide greater energy capacity of the system;

• specific designs used for the use of permanently installed hydrogen piping and appropriate remote-controlled valves and service-point valves that allow for the convenient ground-level refueling of the system from hydrogen delivery vehicles;

• the safety considerations made in the installation and operation of the system;

• operational and maintenance logs for the system or systems covering several backup power events; and

• how the costs of installation and operations compare to appropriate baseline business cases, including both standard ground installations and other rooftop installations with conventional technology (i.e. diesel or batteries).

The study may include the deployment and demonstration of one or several fuel cell backup power systems, or rely on existing or modified installations. DOE seeks to maximize the variety of specific measures studied to accommodate the roof-top installation or the variety of site-specific conditions that may impact the installation and operation of roof-top installations.

The hydrogen delivery tanks for various truck platforms will not be considered in this topic area, but it is possible that hydrogen delivery approaches/advances could be validated under Topic 2 above.

DOE envisions up to two financial assistance awards in the form of cooperative agreements, with a period of performance of up to five years for each award.

Hydrogen Meter R&D (up to $300K federal funding per award, 20% minimum cost share required). Topic 4 will support research and development to improve the accuracy of meters used to measure the mass of hydrogen fuel dispensed into a vehicle. Accurate dispenser meters are critical to the economic viability of hydrogen fueling stations by enabling them to meet measurement requirements for the legal sale of hydrogen by mass to the public, while protecting both the customers and vendors.

The R&D will address improvements required for meters to enable commercial dispensing devices to meet the measurement requirements defined in NIST Handbook 441, while performing under fueling conditions defined in SAE J2601 TIR2.

The work will advance the state of hydrogen meter technology toward an accuracy of at least 1.5% relative while performing under fueling conditions, which include measurements taken over a range of fueling flow rates at the nozzle (up to 60 g H₂/s, up to 3.6 kg/min) and a range of hydrogen pressures (up to at least 87.5 MPa) and temperatures (-40 °C to 85 °C).

DOE envisions one financial assistance award in the form of a cooperative agreement, with a period of performance of up to two years.