InnovateMass

“Clean Energy Companies” are companies that have “…advanced and applied technologies that significantly reduce or eliminate the use of energy from non-renewable sources including, but not limited to: (i) energy efficiency; (ii) demand response; (iii) energy conservation; or (iv) technologies powered, in whole or in part, by the sun, wind, water, geothermal energy, including networked geothermal and deep geothermal energy, hydrogen produced by non-fossil fuel sources and methods, alcohol, fuel cells, fusion energy or any other renewable, nondepletable or recyclable fuel...” (See M.G.L. c. 23J § 1 as amended pursuant to Chapter 179 of the Acts of 2022 “An Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind”).

Please refer to section IV. Eligibility of the RFP for complete eligibility requirements. To qualify as a Massachusetts-based company, the company must have a majority of its business operations in Massachusetts; whether that be an office, headquarters, incubator space, lab space, manufacturing, or sales and marketing. 

Yes, Applicants may submit multiple applications and participate in multiple Applicant Teams. 

At least one letter from a committed Demonstration Partner is required. Applicants usually provide a total of 1 to 3 letters of support. These are typically from project partners, such as a manufacturing partner or investor.

The InnovateMass Technical Assistant (TA) supports awardees through all phases of the project, from workplan development through the final report. They act as the day-to-day project managers representing MassCEC. MassCEC meets with the TA on a monthly basis to get a project status update on each awardee. 

Previous InnovateMass Awardees may apply to the Program only if they are proposing a technology that is new and distinct from that in the previously awarded project. In the Application, the Lead Applicant must explain how the project and product in this current proposal are meaningfully different than the previous InnovateMass product and project (from a technology and/or market perspective) and how these additional InnovateMass funds will be critical to the company’s overall success and the commercialization of the product moving forward.  In addition, the previous InnovateMass project must be completed before applying for a different InnovateMass grant.

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 LCOE reduction analyses for energy generation technologies.

"Public Benefit" Project Sites are defined as any of the following:

• Massachusetts publicly owned facilities
• Low/moderate income (LMI) residential buildings
  • Single-family homes that are owned by residents who earn less than 60% of statewide median income and have deed restrictions and/or fuel assistance verifications
  • Multifamily affordable housing buildings that have
    • an eligibility letter form the Low-Income Energy Affordability Network (LEAN)'s Low-Income Multifamily (LIMF) Energy Retrofits Program; OR
    • a deed restriction that explicitly states that the development has reserved at least 50% of the units for households earning 80% or less of state median income
• A site that has direct benefits to an Environmental Justice Community. Please refer to the RFP for further details.

"Public Benefit" Project Sites are eligible for a reduced cost share of 25%.