Climate Resilience in California’s Electricity Sector

The California Energy Commission (CEC) is administering the 2025 Grant Funding Opportunity (GFO-24-306) under its Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program to support applied research and development projects aimed at enhancing climate resilience within California’s electricity sector. This initiative supports the transition to an equitable, zero-carbon energy system through funding innovative projects that utilize open data, modeling platforms, and visualization tools. Funded efforts will contribute to the state’s statutory energy goals by improving safety, reliability, affordability, environmental sustainability, and equity. Three specific project groups are outlined. Group 1 supports the development of tools and visualizations for the updated Cal-Adapt web application using high-resolution climate data. Group 2 funds the creation of a wildfire planning tool leveraging long-term wildfire risk scenarios. Group 3 focuses on integrating climate-informed science into near-term wildfire modeling platforms to improve utility situational awareness and risk mitigation. Each group must produce open-access, user-friendly tools that serve California investor-owned utilities (IOUs), community-based organizations, and other energy sector participants. Eligible applicants include all public and private entities, excluding local publicly owned electric utilities. There is no match funding requirement, but projects offering matching funds may earn additional evaluation points. Applications must demonstrate applied research and development in pre-commercial technology, clear ratepayer benefits, and alignment with California’s energy policy frameworks. Applicants are expected to design, implement, and transfer project tools and outcomes to the CEC, ensuring knowledge dissemination and long-term utility. Applications must be submitted through the CEC’s Energy Commission Agreement Management System (ECAMS) by 11:59 PM on April 16, 2025. A pre-application workshop will be held on February 13, 2025, and the deadline to submit written questions is February 27, 2025. The anticipated Notice of Proposed Awards will be posted the week of June 2, 2025, with the award agreement expected to start on September 15, 2025, and end by March 31, 2029. Applicants must complete a series of required attachments, including a project narrative, team qualifications, scope of work, and CEQA compliance form. The project must comply with all applicable state environmental laws, including the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). CEC reserves the right to cancel awards if environmental reviews are not completed in time. Key evaluation criteria include technical merit, cost-effectiveness, team qualifications, ratepayer impact, and project budget structure. All technical questions not related to application system support should be directed to Enrico Palo, Commission Agreement Officer, at enrico.palo@energy.ca.gov or (916) 957-7856. Questions specific to ECAMS submission can be sent to ECAMS.SalesforceSupport@energy.ca.gov. CEC strongly encourages early submission of applications and offers support for users navigating the ECAMS platform. All documents become public after the Notice of Proposed Award.