U.S. DOT FY 2026 Phase I Pre-Solicitation Q&A
5/29/26 Update: The Pre-solicitation is now closed. Topic questions are no longer being accepted. * * *
This U.S. DOT Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Pre-solicitation Q&A Forum provides small businesses an opportunity to submit clarifying questions on the topics published in the U.S. DOT Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Phase I Pre-Solicitation. Questions will be answered by the Technical Experts/Topic Authors at the U.S. DOT Operating Administrations during this period. Questions shall be limited to improving the understanding of a particular topic's requirements and should not share proposal ideas nor proprietary information.
The U.S. DOT’s FY 2026 Pre-Solicitation period is April 29, 2026, through May 29, 2026, at 5:00 pm Eastern Time (ET). Only questions posted within this period will be responded to.
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Is there a real requirement for both bidirectional regen and dissipative load based solutions?
At this scale, it doubles cost. If emergency use only, is resistive based loads more than adequate?
I also want to know if there is a desire to do battery pack diagnostics during the discharge process (bad sub-module or other)?
1 vote -
dedicated rail propulsion battery architectures? What is the anticipated energy capacity range of the rail battery systems involved (kWh or
What type of propulsion BESS systems are expected to be supported? Are these conventional UPS-style systems or dedicated rail propulsion battery architectures?
What is the anticipated energy capacity range of the rail battery systems involved (kWh or MWh)?
What is the intended operational goal after de-energization? Is recovered energy expected to be stored and reused through secondary BESS or grid integration methodologies?
Is the expectation to develop a fully integrated all-in-one mobile discharge platform, or a modular deployable system architecture?1 vote