The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Water Power Technologies Office is launching the Innovating Distributed Embedded Energy Prize (InDEEP) to encourage innovation in distributed embedded energy converter technology (DEEC-Tec, pronounced “deck tech”) to generate new, precommercial materials for wave energy conversion.
Donor Name: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Prize
Deadline: 08/25/2023
Size of the Grant: Up to $15k
Details:
This prize will challenge innovators from within and beyond wave energy to design and develop novel materials for marine energy applications that will lay the foundation for generating electricity at the grid scale.
This three-phase, two-year competition is offering a combined cash prize pool up to $2.3 million. Teams will also receive technical support, teaming support, and other forms of mentorship throughout the prize to enable their success.
Purposes
WPTO has specifically chosen the prize mechanism for InDEEP to contribute to four high-level objectives within the office:
- InDEEP aims to explore a diverse range of potentially high-impact technologies for wave energy. By employing the prize mechanism, the barrier to entry is lowered, and multiple prizes can be awarded to researchers both inside and outside the wave energy industry, supporting them to conceptualize a variety of high-techno-economic DEEC concepts.
- InDEEP encourages the use of systems engineering approaches and methodologies in the field of wave energy. Working in the ocean is a challenge; generating cost competitive energy is a challenge; transforming the energy of ocean waves and converting it into electricity is a challenge; scales, timelines, risks, and costs of never-been-done-before engineering systems are a challenge. Leveraging systems engineering approaches and methods at the early concept development and engineering analysis stage will generate consistent and high performing long-term results.
- InDEEP will make new investments in the marine energy community, targeting both the existing wave energy experts and those with ideas new to the wave energy industry. Simultaneously, InDEEP will build a community of innovators working to understand how DEEC-Tec and similar technology areas can be applied to wave energy.
- InDEEP will help prepare promising technologies for future research and maturation by proving comprehensive competitor support for every stage of technology development, from conception to building and testing
Prize Goals
The prize will incentivize the development of novel DEEC-Tec-based concepts to meet the following goals:
- Leverage innovation to systematically develop DEEC-Tec concepts that could bring value to the ocean wave energy conversion industry.
- Build a solver community by engaging and facilitating collaboration between diverse innovators inside and outside the marine energy industry and related DEEC-Tec disciplines.
- Encourage development of novel DEEC-Tec concepts with high potential relevant to ocean wave energy conversion by supporting an interdisciplinary set of competitors as they move from ideation to design.
- Refine wave energy converter innovation methods to incorporate ideas from beyond the field of wave energy based on feedback from the prize.
InDEEP Phase I: Team Building/Engagement and Concept Creation
- Phase I of InDEEP is designed to engage interdisciplinary teams and incentivize the development, through use of innovative methodologies of novel DEEC-Tec concepts. Teams will have the opportunity to attend trainings in ocean wave energy innovation and assessment tools to support building a multidisciplinary team with a range of backgrounds and disciplines needed to develop their wave-energy-relevant DEEC-Tec concepts. This stage is intended to familiarize participants with DEEC-Tec, ocean wave energy, and the integration of these two applications to find new potential solutions. There is a focus on teaming and collaboration, and competitors will be scored on the diversity of expertise represented.
Award Information
- Anticipated Awards: Up to 20 Awards at up to $15k each.
Eligibility Criteria
- The competition is open to private entities (for-profits and nonprofits), non-federal government entities such as states, counties, tribes, and municipalities, academic institutions, and individuals, subject to the following requirements:
- Individuals can compete alone or as a group. A representative of a private entity can also register the entity to compete by itself or as the lead organization of a group of entities. Teams can also be comprised of a mix of individuals and entities or organizations.
- An individual prize competitor (who is not competing as a member of a group) must be a United States citizen or a legal permanent resident.
- A group of individuals competing as one team may win, provided the team captain and HeroX account holder for the team submission is a United States citizen or a legal permanent resident.
- Individuals competing as part of a team may participate if they are legally allowed to work in the United States.
- Private entities must be incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States with majority domestic ownership and control. If an entity seeking to compete does not have majority domestic ownership and control, DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy may consider issuing a waiver of that eligibility requirement where (1) the entity otherwise meets the eligibility requirements; (2) the entity is incorporated in and maintains a primary place of business in the United States; and (3) the entity submits a compelling justification. DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy may require additional information before making a determination on the waiver request.
- Academic institutions must be based in the United States.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Those interested in participating should consider that:
- 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 contest in this program.
- Federal entities and federal employees are not eligible to compete 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 Department of Commerce, State and the Treasury are not eligible to compete.
- 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 are not eligible to compete. Participation in a foreign government talent recruitment program could conflict with this objective by resulting in unauthorized transfer of scientific and technical information to foreign government entities.
For more information, visit DOE.
