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 programs. NCIF and CCIA selections were announced on April 4, 2024. Solar for All selections were announced on April 22, 2024. Funds for all three programs were formally awarded to grant recipients in late summer 2024. If you have additional questions to consider including on this page, please email [email protected].

Last updated: August 16, 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 Solar For All. 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). Solar For All 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, grant recipients and their subrecipients are partnering with a range of organizations to successfully deploy the funding.

Under these programs, EPA is not providing financial assistance directly to projects; rather EPA is providing grants to each program’s eligible recipients, and those recipients (and/or their subrecipients) are providing  financial assistance to projects.

Please refer to the NCIF, CCIA , and Solar for All  webpage for additional details, including contact information for grant recipients. Entities that are interested in applying for a subaward or partnering with a grant recipient under any of the three GGRF programs should contact the relevant grant recipient directly.

When will funding be available to communities across the country for projects?

For NCIF and CCIA:

• NCIF and CCIA funds were formally obligated to grant recipients via award agreements in the summer of 2024
• With awards now in hand, NCIF recipients are now starting to deliver accessible, affordable financing for clean technology projects in communities across the country. 
• CCIA recipients are beginning to provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders working in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
• All entities with eligible projects that are interested in applying for funds from or working with an NCIF or CCIA recipient should contact one of the recipients directly to learn more. Details on the grant recipients and their respective programs – including final workplans, eligible projects, and contact information for each – can be found on EPA’s NCIF and CCIA webpages.  

For Solar for All:

• Solar for All funds were formally obligated to grant recipients in the summer of 2024. Over the next several months, grant recipients will continue working with EPA to complete administrative requirements and finalize their program workplans and budgets, before they are able to begin deploying funds. 
• Once they have completed all administrative requirements – which is expected by the end of 2024 – some Solar for All grant recipients will be able to begin funding projects through existing low-income solar programs. Other grant recipients will utilize a one-year planning period to conduct community outreach and develop new programs before they are able to begin funding projects directly. Please contact the relevant grant recipient serving your geography to learn more about their program and their timeline for funding projects.
• All entities that are interested in partnering with or applying for a subaward from a Solar for All recipient should contact the grant recipient that serves their geography directly, to learn more about potential opportunities and their program timelines. A complete list of the 60 grant recipients, along with program and contact information for each, can be found on EPA’s  Solar for All webpage.

EPA remains on track to formally obligate NCIF and CCIA awards ahead of the statutory deadline of September 30, 2024.

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 grant recipient described the types of eligible projects it plans to fund in its workplan, which can be found on the NCIF page and the CCIA page.

For Solar for All:

• Solar for All supports 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 grant recipients begin launching their programs over the next year, the recipients will publish more information about their specific program strategies. More information about these programs, as well as contact information for the grant recipients, can be found on the Solar for All page.  

Who is eligible to obtain funding from the recipients and their partners?

For the NCIF and CCIA:

• These programs 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 grant recipients have committed to surpassing this requirement by a significant margin. CCIA grant recipients are required by law to expend 100% of funds in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

For Solar for All:

• Solar for All programs provide funding to projects that benefit individuals and families entirely in low-income and disadvantaged communities. 
• Solar for All programs 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 NCIF and CCIA grant program is national in scope. Under the NCIF, grant recipients  provide financial assistance to qualified projects across the country. Under the CCIA, grant recipients provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders across the country who will then provide financial assistance to qualified projects within the three “priority project categories.” The two programs are working together to create a national clean financing network that reaches every state and territory. Please refer to the NCIF and CCIA  pages for additional details. 

For Solar for All:

• Yes. The 60 grant recipients are collectively helping to deliver residential solar power to nearly 900,000 homes nationwide. This includes 49 awards to state-level entities to serve their respective state or territory, six awards to serve Tribes regionally or nationwide, and five multi-state awards to serve specific communities regionally or nationwide. Please refer to the Solar for All page for additional details. 

Award Information

Has EPA already made awards and can recipients access GGRF funding now? 

EPA formally obligated funds under the NCIF and CCIA programs to the eight grant recipients in the summer of 2024. With awards now in hand, NCIF recipients can now start delivering accessible, affordable financing for clean technology projects in communities across the country. CCIA recipients can begin to provide funding and technical assistance to community lenders working in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

EPA formally obligated funds under the Solar for All program to the 60 selected grant recipients in the summer of 2024, under conditional awards. Under the award conditions, grant recipients are currently able to access a small portion of their full award while they continue working with EPA to finalize their program workplans and budgets over the next several months. Once these administrative requirements are completed – which is expected by the end of 2024 -- Solar for All grant recipients will be able to access the full amount of their awards to develop and implement their Solar for All programs and begin funding projects.

With awards made, has the full funding amount been transferred into a bank account at a financial institution of the recipient’s choosing? 

No. EPA does not transfer the full funding amount into a bank account of the recipient’s choosing. There are strict guardrails on funding provided by EPA to each recipient, and each recipient will be required to expend funding in accordance with the specific terms and conditions of their award agreement. 

Are there 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. 

Applicants across all three GGRF programs were selected to receive funds in April 2024. Funds under all three programs were formally obligated to grant recipients during the summer of 2024. 

Who was eligible to apply? 

For 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. 

Selections were made in April 2024 and funds under all three programs were formally obligated to grant recipients in accordance with award terms and conditions during the summer of 2024. 

How did EPA make decisions on the amount of funding provided to each grant recipient?

For NCIF and CCIA:

• Given the strength of the selected applications submitted to the program competitions and the amount of funding requested across those selected applications, EPA partially funded 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 grant recipients were selected, EPA has worked directly with each of the grant recipients to adjust their application packages into final workplans that reflect the partial funding amounts awarded.

For Solar for All:

• Given the strength of the selected applications submitted to the program competition and the amount of funding requested across those selected applications, EPA has partially funded 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 grant recipients  are receiving nearly two-thirds of their initial funding request.  Since recipients were selected, EPA has worked directly with grant recipients to adjust their application packages into award agreements that reflect the partial funding amounts provided.