The United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office’s Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC), invites multidisciplinary teams of postsecondary, undergraduate, and graduate students from a variety of academic programs to solve marine energy challenges.
Donor Name: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Awards and Prizes
Deadline: 05/02/2026
Size of the Grant: $1000 to $10,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Marine energy—power generated from ocean waves, currents, tides, and temperature gradients—is one of the world’s largest untapped energy resources. Continued innovation is needed to optimize marine energy device designs and reduce costs to enable broader deployment.
The Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC) invites interdisciplinary teams of postsecondary, undergraduate, and graduate students from a variety of academic programs to solve real-world marine energy challenges across coastal, maritime, and offshore markets. Through the competition, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office (H2O) seeks to inspire students to innovate in and accelerate the emerging marine energy industry.
The competition’s goals are to:
- Bring together groups of students from multiple disciplines and backgrounds.
- Encourage teams to explore opportunities for marine energy technologies that can benefit other existing maritime industries via real-world concept development experiences.
- Inspire future innovators as an entryway into the marine energy and ocean-based sectors.
Prize
The competition will award up to 30 student teams, based on the application scoring criteria $5,000 and the opportunity to participate in MECC. The teams winning the Application Stage are eligible to compete in Mid-Year challenges for a chance to win $5,000 per challenge.
Eligibility and Competitors
Up to 30 teams will be awarded at the Application Stage and eligible to compete in the full competition. The competition seeks to bring together multidisciplinary undergraduate and graduate student teams and is only open to academic institutions, subject to the following requirements:
- Interested teams must submit an initial application and be awarded at the Application Stage to compete in the full competition.
- Teams may consist of a combination of undergraduate and graduate students but must be at least 50% students who are pursuing their bachelor’s and/or associate’s degree at the beginning of the competition. Teams must also identify a team faculty advisor representing the lead academic institution.
- Non-U.S. institutions are eligible to participate on their own, without a U.S. university partner; however, these teams will not be eligible to receive cash prizes.
- A single team may be comprised of multiple institutions; however, multi-institutional teams must designate the lead institution. For teams comprising U.S. and non-U.S. institutions, the lead institution must be an eligible U.S. institution to receive cash prizes.
- Each institution may only sponsor one team. DOE will not accept multiple applications from a single institution (either as a single institution or a lead institution). DOE will inform applicants of any instance of multiple submissions.
- DOE employees, DOE support service contractors and national laboratory contractors, employees of sponsoring organizations, DOE support service contractors, members of their immediate families (e.g., spouses, children, siblings, or parents), and persons living in the same household as such persons, whether or not related, are not eligible to participate in the prize.
- Individuals who worked at DOE (federal employees or support service contractors or national laboratory contractors) within six months prior to the submission deadline of any contest are not eligible to participate in the prize.
- Federal entities and federal employees are not eligible to participate in any portion of the prize
- Former federal employees should ensure that their participation complies with the post government employment rules. Please contact the appropriate general counsel’s office with any questions
- Current university students who are employed at DOE national labs can participate, including interns, subject to demonstration by the participant mitigation measures are in place to sufficiently address potential conflicts. DOE will not accept submissions that rely on the resources of the federal lab facilities by virtue of the university student’s employment.
- Entities and individuals publicly banned from doing business with the U.S. government such as entities and individuals debarred, suspended, or otherwise excluded from or ineligible for participating in federal programs are not eligible to compete.
For more information, visit DOE.
