Competition/Prize

High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI)

The High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) Program seeks qualified industry partners to participate in short-term, collaborative projects with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Laboratories. HPC4EI is the umbrella initiative for the HPC4Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) and HPC4Materials (HPC4Mtls) Programs. DOE’s HPC4Mfg Program is interested in establishing collaborations that address key energy and decarbonization related challenges for domestic manufacturers. The HPC4Mfg Program is designed to improve manufacturing processes, address products’ lifecycle energy consumption, and increase the efficiency of energy conversion and storage technologies by providing access to national lab supercomputing resources and expertise for high performance computing projects.

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Hackaday Prize

Enter one or more of this year’s challenges for the chance to win cash prizes and move on to the finals, where our panel of judges will decide on the grand prize winner!

Upcoming challenges include:

  • Reuse, Recycle, Revamp (May 1 – June 12):
  • Hack it Back (June 12 – July 24)
  • Climate Resilient Communities (July 24 – September 4)
  • Save the World Wildcard (September 4 – October 16)

Prizes include: 1st place – $50,000 + Supplyframe DesignLab Residency, 2nd place –  $20,000, 3rd place – $15,000, 4th place – $10,000,5th place – $5,000. Top 50 finalists will win $500.

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NYSERDA RTEM Hackathon

We will provide approximately 200 buildings worth of time-series data from the RTEM database. This database supports key commercial real estate stakeholders and market influencers in identifying, prioritizing and implementing energy conservation, decarbonization and electrification opportunities.

We seek submissions that propose novel use cases for the provided data set. Be creative. Ideal submissions are those use cases that positively impact or accelerate the electrification and decarbonization of New York State commercial and multi-family buildings.

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Geophone Prize Phase 3 (American-Made Challenges)

The Geothermal Geophone Prize consists of three phases that will fast-track efforts to design, test, and fabricate advanced functional seismometer prototypes. Each stage will include a contest period when competitors work to rapidly advance their solutions with the support of the American-Made Network. Sign up to compete here.

In Phase I (April – September 2022), teams will submit concept and feasibility designs to identify and develop high temperature, downhole seismic sensors using currently available components. Up to 8 semifinalists will receive $150,000 in cash prizes and vouches!

Phase II will open in December 2022 and close in October 2023. Both new and repeat applicants are eligible to submit design and proof-of-concept for their technologies. Up to 5 finalists will receive $350,000 in cash prizes and vouchers.

Phase III will open in December 2023 and close in March 2025. In this phase, teams will prototype and test their Phase II designs. Up to 2 winners will receive a $350,000 cash prize.

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Geophone Prize Phase 2 (American-Made Challenges)

The Geothermal Geophone Prize consists of three phases that will fast-track efforts to design, test, and fabricate advanced functional seismometer prototypes. Each stage will include a contest period when competitors work to rapidly advance their solutions with the support of the American-Made Network. Sign up to compete here.

In Phase I (April – September 2022), teams will submit concept and feasibility designs to identify and develop high temperature, downhole seismic sensors using currently available components. Up to 8 semifinalists will receive $150,000 in cash prizes and vouches!

Phase II will open in December 2022 and close in October 2023. Both new and repeat applicants are eligible to submit design and proof-of-concept for their technologies. Up to 5 finalists will receive $350,000 in cash prizes and vouchers.

Looking forward, in Phase III (December 2023 – March 2025), teams will prototype and test their Phase II designs. Up to 2 winners will receive a $350,000 cash prize.

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Geophone Prize Phase I (American-Made Challenges)

The Geothermal Geophone Prize consists of three phases that will fast-track efforts to design, test, and fabricate advanced functional seismometer prototypes. Each stage will include a contest period when competitors work to rapidly advance their solutions with the support of the American-Made Network. Sign up to compete here.

In Phase I (April – September 2022), teams will submit concept and feasibility designs to identify and develop high temperature, downhole seismic sensors using currently available components. Up to 8 semifinalists will receive $150,000 in cash prizes and vouchers!

Looking forward, in Phase II (December 2022 – October 2023), new and repeat applicants will submit design and proof-of-concept for their technologies. Up to 5 finalists will receive $350,000 in cash prizes and vouchers. Finally, in Phase III (December 2023 – March 2025), teams will prototype and test their Phase II designs. Up to 2 winners will receive a $350,000 cash prize.

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CABLE Conductor Manufacturing (American-Made Challenges)

The Conductivity-enhanced materials for Affordable, Breakthrough Leapfrog Electric and thermal applications (CABLE) Conductor Manufacturing Prize aims to help supercharge U.S. energy and manufacturing industries.

In the current stage of this prize, competitors will provide a sample of their material for electrical conductivity testing and preliminary plans to scale-up and manufacture the material according to prize requirements. Up to 6 competitors each will win $200,000 in cash awards and $100,000 in noncash voucher support to work with a DOE national laboratory (including user facilities) or other American-Made Challenges Network provider in Stage 3. Any eligible entity can compete in Stage 2 regardless of whether they were a competitor in Stage 1.

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MSI STEM Research & Development Consortium (MSRDC)

The MSI STEM Research & Development Consortium (MSRDC) is a solutions provider, research development partner and strategic asset to more than 60 minority-serving research institutions, industry and government partners. Our members use a combination of basic, applied, and/or advanced technology development research to pioneer groundbreaking solutions. With MSRDC’s unique funding vehicle, its members enjoy access to accelerate and elevate their research from concept to prototype and beyond. Current R&D funding opportunities include:

  • Opaque Building Envelopes
  • Thermal Energy Storage
  • Next Generation Electric Machines (NGEM)
  • Directed Energy Weapons – Ultra-Short Pulse Laser and Atmospheric Characterization
  • High-Temperature Technologies for Naval Applications
  • Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning for Photonics, Power & Energy, Atmospherics, and Quantum Science
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Urban Future Prize Competition

The Urban Future Lab is pleased to announce, for the sixth year, the Urban Future Prize Competition, which seeks to find the brightest climatetech startups and, through the generous support of The New York Community Trust, MUFG, and NYSERDA, award two winners with $50,000 cash prizes. These awardees will also receive admission into the ACRE Incubator, New York’s longest-running and most successful climatetech program. The deadline has been extended to June 20.

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Renewables Advancing Community Energy Resilience (RACER)

RACER will award $25 million in funding for projects to enable communities to utilize solar and solar-plus-storage to prevent disruptions in power caused by extreme weather and other events, and to rapidly restore electricity if it goes down. Projects will foster engagement and ongoing communication among multiple stakeholders such as utilities, municipal planners, emergency responders, community groups, and others, especially in underserved communities located in areas vulnerable to extreme events causing frequent energy and power service disruptions. In addition, projects will develop and demonstrate rapid energy restoration technologies based on the community resilience plan in order to increase the durability of photovoltaic (PV) systems.

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Industrial Technology Validation Pilot

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) has launched phase two of the Industrial Technology Validation pilot. This phase is open to all industrial sites that want to team with technology vendors to evaluate innovative manufacturing technologies in their plants. Technology vendors are also invited to apply individually.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until June 30, 2022.

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Hydropower Operations Optimization (H2Os) Prize

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) is launching the Hydropower Operations Optimization (H2Os) Prize to encourage the development of new solutions that can help advance hydropower’s contribution to the grid. Hydropower provides beneficial operational flexibility in timing and storage of energy that can be better leveraged to meet grid needs. This competition challenges innovators to employ modeling, data analytics, and machine learning to schedule hydropower operations in coordination with existing grid scheduling practices while respecting water management operations and constraints.

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