AmplifyMass

“Cost share support” is defined by this program as grant funding that an applicant is seeking from MassCEC that is required by the prime award.  In other words, the prime award is contingent upon the applicant contributing a specified amount of funding, called cost share funding.

“Adder funding” is defined by this program as grant funding that an applicant is seeking from MassCEC that is not required by the prime award, but would be used to expand or enhance the clean energy project scope funded by the prime award. In assessing requests for adder funding, MassCEC places special consideration on what the project will be able to accomplish with the adder funding that it wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Adder funding budget items should clearly and directly expand or enhance additional clean energy project outcomes and be linked to project work (i.e., not used for overhead).  The AmplifyMass application form allows space for adder funding justification.
 

If you are an academic institution, you must be a Massachusetts academic institution. If you are a company, you must have a majority of the following located in Massachusetts (i.e., 3 out of 4, or 2 out of 3 if only 3 are applicable):

• Company headquarters
• Primary sales & marketing
• Primary manufacturing operations
• Primary research & development operations

If you are a Massachusetts-based academic institution or company currently working as a subcontractor under a prime award to a different entity, you are still eligible to apply for AmplifyMass.

MassCEC employs a diligent review process of all applications, in the order that they are received. MassCEC will respond shortly after submission to confirm receipt of your application. The review process can take a variable amount of time depending on the subscription to the program (up to six months). MassCEC may contact you sooner if there are questions on your application. Please keep this timeline in mind when applying to AmplifyMass in order to meet your cost share commitments related to your prime award.

The ideal time to apply is concurrently with or soon after you have submitted your prime award application. While we are happy to review draft prime award applications and concept papers, we cannot commit to funding any proposal for which we have not reviewed the full application as submitted to the prime award agency. Applicants are welcome to apply for AmplifyMass at any point in their prime award review process up until the execution of a Cooperative Agreement or similar agreement with the prime award agency. However, applicants are advised to keep in mind that the AmplifyMass review process can take up to six months.

Yes. If you have received a new award for a unique project, you are eligible to apply for AmplifyMass again. Award selection will be subject to satisfactory performance under the previous AmplifyMass award.

You are eligible to apply, provided that you have not yet executed a Cooperative Agreement or similar agreement with the prime awarding agency specifically for the plus-up funds. You should follow the same application process as if you were applying for a new award. You will only be eligible for AmplifyMass funds to support the plus-up project, not the portion of the project for which you already received an award.

If you received an AmplifyMass award for your original project and are now applying for a plus-up project, you may be eligible to apply to AmplifyMass again. However, the sum of your AmplifyMass awards for both the original award and the plus-up award may not exceed the cap of $300,000.
 

Yes. Non-profit institutions based in Massachusetts can apply to AmplifyMass under the same rules as academic research teams.

The TAC is an estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions that can be reduced, avoided, or remediated assuming wide adoption of a technology or practice. The TAC analysis is designed to give both the applicant and MassCEC a strong sense of what sources of greenhouse gas emissions the proposed project would impact, and how large those potential impacts could be.

Applicants are encouraged to use tools such as the CRANE tool, or other credible public data sources such as the United States Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Emissions Inventory (especially for greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide), the EPA's Greenhouse Gases Equivalencies Calculator, and others. Analyses may be based on a state-wide, national, or international framing. Applicants should seek primarily to identify the total carbon emissions currently associated with the sector targeted by their technology or practice (for example, transportation or residential heating). For example, a technology to reduce the cost of solar panels would impact the approximately 1,250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted every year from electricity generation in the United States.

To the greatest extent possible, applicants should also seek to estimate an “optimistically plausible” amount of those emissions that could be reduced, avoided, or remediated given widespread adoption of the proposed solution. Order-of-magnitude estimates are acceptable, as the goal of the analysis is primarily conceptual rather than precise. Applicants are encouraged to consider both direct and indirect effects as appropriate and to explicitly describe assumptions, especially assumptions related to cost reductions or barriers to adoption.

Acceptable alternatives to a TAC analysis include an avoided-energy analysis for energy efficiency technologies and Levelized Cost of Energy reduction analyses for energy generation technologies.