SUPERHOT
Funds United States geothermal R&D teams developing super-hot reservoir technologies through ARPA-E cooperative agreements.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
ARPA-E administers SUPERHOT as a U.S. Department of Energy financial-assistance Notice of Funding Opportunity under Assistance Listing 81.135. The program supports research and development of technologies that enable production of geothermal energy from super-hot reservoirs above 375 C and 22 MPa for 15 years or more. The official facts describe two core categories: robust well construction and heat extraction from reservoir to well.
The DE-FOA-0003556 call used cooperative agreements as the main instrument, with Other Transactions Authority possible case by case. The federal share of awards could vary between $250,000 and $10 million. The source states an approximately $30 million pool shared between DE-FOA-0003556 and the companion DE-FOA-0003557 SBIR/STTR NOFO, so the pool is not solely attributable to this row. Base cost share is at least 20 percent of total project cost, with reductions for some applicant types and a 50 percent expectation for Other Transaction agreements.
Eligible applicants included U.S. institutions of higher education, national laboratories, industry, and individuals. For companies, the direct path is industry participation in the NOFO; small businesses that qualify as a Small Business Concern were also pointed to the companion SBIR/STTR NOFO and could apply to only one of the two SUPERHOT NOFOs. Work generally had to be performed in the United States unless ARPA-E granted a Foreign Work Waiver.
The application sequence had a concept paper deadline on February 19, 2025, a full-application questions deadline on February 23, 2026, a full application deadline on March 5, 2026, and a reply-to-reviewer-comments deadline on March 31, 2026. Those deadlines have passed, so this catalog row is closed as of June 29, 2026. Applicants should use it as a reference for the SUPERHOT program and monitor ARPA-E for any later geothermal or SUPERHOT-related opportunity.
Research and development for super-hot geothermal reservoirs, including robust well construction, high-temperature materials, casing and cement systems, heat extraction, reservoir engineering, enhanced geothermal systems, advanced geothermal systems, and baseload geothermal power.
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