Notice of Intent to Issue Funding Opportunity Announcement entitled Developing Technologies to Advance the Understanding of State of Stress and Geomechanical Impacts within the Subsurface | DE FOA 0001887

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0001887

This notice is an advance heads-up from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), under its Carbon Storage Program, that it planned to release a forthcoming Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) focused on subsurface geomechanics and stress. The intent is not to solicit proposals yet, but to alert prospective applicants that a competitive funding opportunity was expected. The planned FOA is identified in the notice as DE-FOA-0001826, with the overall theme "Developing Technologies to Advance the Understanding of State of Stress and Geomechanical Impacts within the Subsurface." The notice also emphasizes that it is only a Notice of Intent: no applications would be accepted under this notice, and the agency did not want questions or responses directed to the Notice of Intent itself.

Technically, the planned FOA would target research and development that improves how the in-situ state of stress is measured and interpreted in deep geologic settings, and how stress changes and geomechanical effects can be predicted as fluids are injected underground. In carbon storage and other subsurface injection contexts, understanding the state of stress matters because it strongly influences whether injection could reactivate existing faults, induce seismicity, deform the reservoir or caprock, or alter permeability pathways. The notice highlights two broad technical thrusts: first, advancing capabilities to measure and understand in-situ stress (especially because stress is a key variable controlling geomechanical response), and second, building capabilities to predict pressure migration and the geomechanical impacts of that migrating pressure within a storage complex. In practical terms, this points to better field tools, analytical methods, and modeling approaches that reduce uncertainty in stress estimates and improve forecasts of how pressure changes propagate and interact with the surrounding rock.

Two Areas of Interest were anticipated. Area of Interest 1 centers on tools and methods for determining the maximum principal stress in the deep subsurface. This is a specific stress component often needed for fracture and fault-slip analyses, wellbore stability assessments, and geomechanical modeling. Area of Interest 2 focuses on methods for understanding the impact of vertical pressure migration due to injection on the state of subsurface stress. This reflects a concern that pressure does not always remain confined to the intended injection interval; it can move vertically through formations, along faults, or via legacy wells, potentially changing stresses in overlying or underlying units and affecting geologic containment. Work responsive to this area would likely involve coupled flow and geomechanics concepts aimed at explaining and predicting how vertically migrating pressure perturbs stress fields and what that means for integrity and risk.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity category is listed as discretionary, with cooperative agreements as the intended funding instrument type, which typically means DOE would expect substantial involvement during project execution (for example, coordinated technical direction, milestones, and reporting). The activity category is research and development in energy, science, and technology, and the CFDA number is 81.089. Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning it was broadly open to different types of entities (such as universities, private companies, national laboratories, non-profits, and others), subject to any additional eligibility language that would have appeared in the actual FOA text. The notice data also lists an expected number of awards of eight, and shows an award ceiling of 1 (as written in the source data), though that value is ambiguous without the full FOA context and may reflect a placeholder or a formatting artifact rather than a meaningful per-award maximum. The notice was created on February 2, 2018, and carried an original closing date of February 28, 2018, which in practice reflects the end of the notice period rather than a proposal deadline, since no submissions were permitted for the Notice of Intent.

Overall, the key takeaway is that DOE NETL was signaling an upcoming competitive FOA aimed at improving the measurement of subsurface stress and the prediction of injection-driven pressure migration and related geomechanical impacts, with particular emphasis on determining maximum principal stress at depth and understanding how vertical pressure migration alters subsurface stress conditions. The notice itself was informational only and did not accept applications or correspondence.

• The Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory in the energy, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Notice of Intent to Issue Funding Opportunity Announcement entitled Developing Technologies to Advance the Understanding of State of Stress and Geomechanical Impacts within the Subsurface" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.089.
• This funding opportunity was created on Feb 02, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 28, 2018 This is a Notice of Intent to issue Funding Opportunity Announcement DE-FOA-0001826. Applications will not be accepted for the Notice of Intent.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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