MACROALGAE RESEARCH INSPIRING NOVEL ENERGY RESOURCES (MARINER) | DE FOA 0001726

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0001726

The MACROALGAE RESEARCH INSPIRING NOVEL ENERGY RESOURCES (MARINER) funding opportunity is an ARPA-E program run by the U.S. Department of Energy focused on accelerating early-stage, high-impact technology development for growing macroalgae (seaweed) in the ocean as a scalable source of biomass. ARPA-E, created under the America COMPETES legislation, specifically targets energy technologies that are still too risky or premature for private investment but could become transformative with a relatively modest, time-bounded push. In this case, the program is framed around U.S. economic and energy security goals: reducing reliance on foreign energy, cutting energy-related emissions (including greenhouse gases), improving efficiency across the economy, and maintaining U.S. leadership in advanced energy technologies. Awards made under this FOA are cooperative agreements, meaning ARPA-E typically expects active involvement and technical engagement during the project period, rather than a hands-off grant model, and recipients must follow the applicable federal assistance rules (2 C.F.R. Part 200 and Part 910).

At the core of MARINER is the idea that the United States has an unusually large opportunity in marine biomass because it has the world’s largest marine Exclusive Economic Zone, a coastal ocean area roughly comparable in size to the total land area of all 50 states. The program highlights macroalgae as a way to produce feedstock for fuels, chemicals, and other products without intensifying land and freshwater competition onshore. This is presented as increasingly important in light of long-term pressure on agricultural systems, including the projected major increase in food demand by mid-century. By moving biomass production offshore, macroalgae farming can potentially avoid some of the constraints that limit terrestrial bioenergy crops, while still delivering large volumes of renewable carbon that can be converted into fuels and chemical intermediates.

The program’s main technical objective is to develop the critical tools and systems needed for a U.S. macroalgae industry to scale into a reliable, cost- and energy-efficient supplier of ocean-grown biomass. MARINER is not simply about proving seaweed can grow; it is aimed at solving the practical engineering and operational barriers that prevent macroalgae cultivation from reaching industrial scale at competitive costs. ARPA-E emphasizes two linked challenges: first, dramatically reducing both capital costs (the cost of building farms and equipment) and operating costs (the cost of running them), and second, expanding where farms can be placed by enabling deployment in more exposed, offshore environments rather than only sheltered nearshore waters. That offshore expansion matters because it increases the usable area for cultivation and can reduce conflicts with other coastal uses, but it also introduces harsher conditions like stronger currents, waves, storms, and more demanding logistics.

To address those barriers, MARINER explicitly seeks new cultivation system designs where harvesting and transport are treated as integral parts of the overall architecture, not afterthoughts. In practice, that means proposals are expected to consider end-to-end farming concepts: how the macroalgae is seeded or started, how it is supported and grown, how it is monitored, how it is harvested efficiently, and how harvested biomass is moved or consolidated for downstream handling. The FOA signals interest in approaches that incorporate novel materials and marine engineering solutions (for example, structures, moorings, and growth substrates suited to offshore conditions), as well as autonomous and robotic operations that could reduce labor and vessel time, which are often major cost drivers in offshore work. The program also highlights advanced sensing and monitoring, reflecting the need to understand growth conditions, nutrient availability, biomass yield, and farm integrity in real time, especially when farms are far from shore.

Beyond physical farm systems, MARINER aims to build enabling tools that speed development and reduce risk. This includes computational modeling tools that can help predict farm performance, optimize designs, and guide siting and operational decisions in realistic ocean environments. It also includes ocean-deployable sensor platforms to gather data at sea, which is essential for validating models and for managing farms efficiently. Finally, the program calls out advanced macroalgal breeding tools, recognizing that biology and genetics can be just as limiting as hardware. Better strains could improve growth rates, resilience to temperature and salinity swings, resistance to disease or fouling, and overall consistency of biomass composition, which matters for fuel and chemical conversion processes.

Overall, ARPA-E’s expected outcome for MARINER is a set of technologies that make advanced ocean farming systems realistic at commercial scale, capable of delivering renewable macroalgal biomass at costs competitive with terrestrial biomass feedstocks. The intent is not only to improve isolated components, but to catalyze a broader marine biomass sector by creating practical cultivation, monitoring, and breeding capabilities that industry can build on. In terms of the published opportunity details, the FOA number is DE-FOA-0001726, it was released on December 16, 2016, and it used a concept paper process with concept papers due by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on February 14, 2017 (with ARPA-E recommending submission 48 hours early). The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement under CFDA 81.135, eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any entity type, subject to any additional eligibility text in the FOA), the award ceiling listed is $10,000,000, and the program anticipated making roughly 11 awards.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "MACROALGAE RESEARCH INSPIRING NOVEL ENERGY RESOURCES (MARINER)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on Dec 16, 2016.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 14, 2017 Concept Papers are due no later than 500 p.m. Eastern Time. ARPA-E strongly recommends submitting Concept Papers 48 Hours in advance of the due date.. (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 $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 11 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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