[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 243 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Page 65161]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-27451]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY


Notice of Request for Information: Challenges and Opportunities 
for the American Solar Industry

AGENCY: Solar Technologies Office, Office of Energy Efficiency and 
Renewable Energy, Department of Energy.

ACTION: Request for information.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office 
(SETO) seeks information to help inform its research priorities, as 
part of its annual planning process. The purpose of this Request for 
Information (RFI) is to solicit feedback from industry, academia, 
research laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholders to 
identify areas of interest related to challenges and opportunities for 
the American solar industry that are appropriate for federal government 
funding. This is solely a request for information and not a Funding 
Opportunity Announcement (FOA).

DATES: Responses to the RFI must be received no later than January 7, 
2019.

ADDRESSES: Responses to this RFI must be submitted electronically to 
the email addresses provided in each of the topic sections as described 
in the RFI DE-FOA-0002055 available at: https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/FileContent.aspx?FileID=b79b612c-f2f9-49ea-846e-e74d2e6602d0. Responses must be provided as attachments to an email. It 
is recommended that attachments with file sizes exceeding 25MB be 
compressed (i.e., zipped) to ensure message delivery. Responses must be 
provided as a Microsoft Word (.docx) attachment to the email, and in 12 
point font with 1 inch margins. Only electronic responses will be 
accepted.
    Please identify answers by responding to a specific question or 
topic if applicable. Respondents may answer as many or as few questions 
as desired at their discretion.
    EERE will not respond to individual submissions or publicly publish 
a compendium of responses. A response to this RFI will not be viewed as 
a binding commitment to develop or pursue the project or ideas 
discussed.
    Respondents are requested to provide the following information at 
the start of their response to this RFI:
     Company/institution name;
     Company/institution contact;
     Contact's address, phone number, and email address.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Andrew Graves (202) 586-1071, 
[email protected]. Further instructions can be found in the RFI 
DE-FOA-0002055 document posted on EERE Exchange.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: DOE posted on its website a RFI to solicit 
feedback from industry (including but not limited to research 
organizations, manufacturing organizations, catalyst manufacturers, and 
catalyst research consortia), academia, research laboratories, 
government agencies, and other solar stakeholders. The RFI DE-FOA-
0002055 is available at: https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/FileContent.aspx?FileID=b79b612c-f2f9-49ea-846e-e74d2e6602d0.

Confidential Business Information

    Because information received in response to this RFI may be used to 
structure future programs, funding and/or otherwise be made available 
to the public, respondents are strongly advised to not include any 
information in their responses that might be considered business 
sensitive, proprietary, or otherwise confidential. If, however, a 
respondent chooses to submit business sensitive, proprietary, or 
otherwise confidential information, it must be clearly and 
conspicuously marked as such in the response as detailed in the RFI at: 
https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/FileContent.aspx?FileID=b79b612c-f2f9-49ea-846e-e74d2e6602d0. Factors of interest to DOE when evaluating 
requests to treat submitted information as confidential include: (1) A 
description of the items; (2) whether and why such items are 
customarily treated as confidential within the industry; (3) whether 
the information is generally known by or available from other sources; 
(4) whether the information has previously been made available to 
others without obligation concerning its confidentiality; (5) an 
explanation of the competitive injury to the submitting person that 
would result from public disclosure; (6) when such information might 
lose its confidential character due to the passage of time; and (7) why 
disclosure of the information would be contrary to the public interest.

    Signed in Washington, DC on December 10, 2018.
Charles Gay,
Director, Solar Energy Technologies Office.
[FR Doc. 2018-27451 Filed 12-18-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6450-01-P