2026 Distributed Wind Turbine Competitiveness Improvement Project

The Department of Energy Office of Science seeks proposals for the 2026 Distributed Wind Turbine Competitiveness Improvement Project across thirteen topic areas in wind turbine development, power electronics development, and manufacturing innovation, with proposals due November 13 and technical questions due October 16. No set-aside applies.

The National Laboratory of the Rockies, managed by the Alliance for Energy Innovation, LLC under prime contract DE-AC36-08GO28308, is issuing this solicitation. Place of performance is Arvada, Colorado.

The thirteen topic areas span prototype design development, prototype manufacture, prototype installation and testing, component innovation, system optimization, small turbine certification and/or listing (capped at 150 kW peak power), type certification and listing, power electronics development, power electronics pre-testing, power electronics listing, manufacturing process innovation, technology commercialization, and field validation (unlimited turbine size, generally up to 1,000 kW rated power). Award amounts range from $200,000 to $800,000 per topic, with mandatory price participation requirements ranging from 20% to 50%. Period of performance is 21 months per topic area, up to 60 months for field validation.

Mandatory qualifications require U.S. incorporation, electrical power output as primary output, U.S.-based work unless justified, new turbine hardware (not refurbished or remanufactured), and current relevant certifications. Offerors may submit proposals for individual topic areas or combine up to three topic areas in phased, multi-topic proposals with go/no-go decision points between phases. Proposals have a maximum of 15 pages for single-topic and 20 pages for multi-topic submissions (excluding resumes and proposed SOW changes). Evaluation applies best value selection with qualitative merit weighted as substantially more important than price. NAICS 54171; PSC AJ12.