The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Electricity launched the $1.1-million Digitizing Utilities Prize to connect utilities with interdisciplinary teams of software developers and data experts to transform digital systems in the energy sector through data analytics, processing, quality assurance, storage, and deletion.
Donor Name: U.S. Department of Energy
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Prize
Deadline: 01/27/2023
Size of the Grant: $425,000
Details:
Recent advancements in the energy industry have enabled utilities to collect more data than ever before, challenging traditional methods of data acquisition, use, and storage. The Digitizing Utilities Prize supports competitors as they work directly with utility partners to develop software solutions to improve how the energy industry manages, stores, and processes these large data sets.
This Digitizing Utilities Prize supports DOE’s commitment to accelerating research, development, and demonstration of new technologies and tools within the electricity sector to advance reliability, resilience, and affordable operation of the power system.
Plan and Progress Phases
The Digitizing Utilities Prize supports competitors as they work directly with utility partners to develop software solutions through two phases: Plan and Progress. This approach will drive accelerated development of the most promising ideas.
- Phase 1 – Plan: Teams of developers (e.g., software developers, automation engineers, data scientists) will form robust teams that are willing to solve one of the utility issues presented. Teams must demonstrate that they have an understanding of the problem and propose how they would solve the problem.
- Phase 2 – Progress: Winning teams will work with the utility partners over six months to implement their proposed solution by developing a software solution that addresses the issues presented by the utilities. Teams must demonstrate how their methods and process could be utilized by other utilities in the future.
Funding Information
- Phase 1 – Up to nine winners of Phase 1 will receive a cash prize of $75,000.
- Phase 2 – Up to four winners of Phase 2 will receive a portion of the $425,000 total cash prize pool.
Eligibility Criteria
The competition is open only to private entities (for-profits and nonprofits); nonfederal government entities such as states, counties, tribes, and municipalities; academic institutions; and individuals, subject to the following requirements:
- Employees of the Track 1 and Track 2 utility partners are not eligible to apply.
- Private entities must be incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States with majority domestic ownership and control.
- Academic institutions must be based in the United States.
- An individual prize competitor or group of competitors who are not competing as part of an incorporated private entity must all be United States citizens or legal permanent residents.
- Individuals competing as part of an incorporated private entity may participate if they are legally allowed to work in the United States.
- DOE employees, employees of sponsoring organizations, 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) within 6 months prior to the submission deadline of any contest are not eligible to participate in any prize contests in this program.
- Federal entities and federal employees are not eligible to participate in any portion of the prize.
- DOE national laboratory employees cannot compete in the prize.
- 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.
- Entities and individuals identified as a restricted party on one or more screening lists of the U.S. Departments of Commerce, State, or the Treasury are not eligible to compete. See Consolidated Screening List.
- This prize competition is expected to positively impact U.S. economic competitiveness. Participation in a foreign government talent recruitment program1 could conflict with this objective by resulting in unauthorized transfer of scientific and technical information to foreign government entities. Therefore, individuals participating in foreign government talent recruitment programs of foreign countries of risk are not eligible to compete. Further, teams that include individuals participating in foreign government talent recruitment programs of foreign countries of risk 2 are not eligible to compete
For more information, visit U.S. Department of Energy.
