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Welcome to the Winners’ Circle |
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As the school year comes to an end, so does another year of collegiate competitions with the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)!
Prizes and competitions are hands down the easiest way to get federal funding. Competitors in our collegiate competitions learn about new technologies, make connections through the American-Made Network, and build a foundation for working toward clean energy goals.
Anyone can be an innovator, whether you're working in your garage, an office, a classroom, a community center, or a laboratory. We congratulate each winner, finalist, and participant who shared their innovative ideas for clean energy in this year's competitions. If you see a competition that interests you, sign up for our EERE Prizes Newsletter and stay tuned for next year’s application periods!
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EERE announced the winners of the Geothermal Collegiate Competition, an annual challenge that offers college students experience in the renewable energy industry and the chance to win cash prizes for developing real-world geothermal solutions.
Team GeoTribe from the University of Oklahoma won first place in the Technical Track, and Aurora Geothermal Solutions from Columbia University and Princeton University took first in the Policy Track for their innovative proposals for geothermal systems in communities across the country. Each first-place team will receive a $10,000 cash prize plus funding to host a community event where they will present their projects and discuss geothermal energy.
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EERE recently crowned the winners of the 2024 Hydropower Collegiate Competition. Northern Arizona University was the overall winner, followed by Johns Hopkins University in second place and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in third place.
With less than 3% of the nation’s 90,000-plus dams producing electricity, new hydropower represents a significant opportunity to expand clean energy in the United States. That’s why the 2024 competition asked teams to develop solutions to add power-generating infrastructure to existing non-powered dams. Read more to see how the winners tackled hydropower challenges in this year’s competition and stay tuned for updates from the 2025 competition!
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This past Earth Day, EERE announced that the University of Arizona (U of A) won the Design Challenge in the 2024 Solar Decathlon®.
As EERE’s longest-running student competition, the Solar Decathlon challenges the next generation of building professionals to design high-performance, low-carbon buildings powered by renewable energy. The Solar Decathlon’s Design Challenge is a one- to two-semester, design-only competition.
Out of 40 finalist teams from around the world, U of A was selected for their partnership with the Hopi Tribe on 24 eco-friendly rowhouses. Learn more about how these rowhouses integrate passive design techniques and a microgrid to help the community produce, distribute, and consume their own food!
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EERE announced the winners and the Project Pitch Champion of the Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition Class of 2024 during a live event at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
The Solar District Cup challenges student teams to design and model solar-plus-storage systems to meet the energy needs and decarbonization goals of campus, Tribal, and urban mixed-use districts. Throughout the competition, cross-disciplinary students design proposals that reimagine how electric energy is generated, managed, and used in these various environments, while gaining industry experience and connections.
The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez was chosen as this year’s Project Pitch Champion from six first-place teams pitching their solar energy system proposals to a panel of industry experts.
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Want to get the latest EERE prize news directly to your inbox?
The EERE prizes and competitions portfolio is organized into four themes, so set your subscriber preferences to get prize announcements for the topics that you want to see, right as they open:
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Student competitions for students who want to gain hands-on experience with clean energy technology innovation.
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Technology innovation for innovators who are interested in prizes specific to a clean energy technology.
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Entrepreneurial prizes for taking ideas to the next level by working with our national laboratories toward commercialization.
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Community competitions for communities who are ready to leverage resources to solve a local clean energy challenge.
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Congratulations to California State University Maritime Academy, winner of the 11th annual Collegiate Wind Competition! Managed by NREL on behalf of EERE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, this competition challenges college students to take the first steps to join the wind energy workforce through real-world experience with wind energy technologies, project development, and outreach in the wind and renewable energy industries.
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The Colorado School of Mines and Arapahoe Community College are our Battery Workforce Challenge Year One champions! This engineering competition, sponsored by EERE and managed by Argonne National Laboratory, offers experiential learning by challenging teams to partner with local community colleges to design electric vehicle (EV) battery packs. Read more to learn how the challengers’ collective efforts, dedication, and ingenuity allowed them to work closely with industry experts and tackle relevant, real-world engineering challenges facing the automotive industry.
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Kudos to the University of New Hampshire, overall winner of EERE’s 2024 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC)! Funded by EERE’s Water Power Technologies Office and administered by NREL, MECC tasks student teams to develop marine energy technology solutions, preparing them for career paths in support of the blue economy. Learn more about how this year’s winners harnessed the power of waves, tides, and currents to tap into the abundance of marine energy!
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 The Ohio State University and Wilberforce University celebrate winning the 2024 EcoCAR EV Challenge. Photo courtesy of Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions
Congratulations to The Ohio State University and Wilberforce University, the year two champions of the EcoCAR EV Challenge! Sponsored by DOE, General Motors, and MathWorks, and managed by Argonne National Laboratory, the challenge helps students develop skills for their future careers in the EV workforce. Learn more about how this year’s winners took on real-world technical EV challenges!
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Eleven students from four universities took top honors during the annual JUMP into STEM final competition hosted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) on January 25–26, 2024. During the Final Competition, participants presented their JUMP into STEM submissions to a panel of judges, learned about career paths in building science, networked with experts in the field, took a tour of a national lab, and more. Winning students will be offered paid summer internships at one of three national laboratories: ORNL, NREL, or Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
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New prize alert! This past Earth Day, EERE announced plans to develop a new prize competition called the Equitable and Clean Opportunities for Hydrogen Deployment Prize, or the Eco-H2 Prize. This Eco-H2 Prize will invite competitors to use sustainability assessment tools and frameworks to complete case studies of existing or planned hydrogen technology deployments. The resulting assessments will help the clean hydrogen industry develop guidelines to properly assess the unique characteristics of real-world, commercial hydrogen energy projects. Stay tuned for more information about the Eco-H2 Prize!
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