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 to generate new, precommercial materials for wave energy conversion.
Donor Name: U.S. Department of Energy
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Prize
Deadline: 08/26/2023
Size of the Grant: $2,300,000
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.
Wave energy is the most abundant and geographically diverse marine energy resource in the United States. The total available wave energy resource in the United States is equivalent to approximately 34% of all U.S. power generation in 2019.
To help build energy resilience in coastal cities and support President Biden’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, InDEEP seeks innovations that blend materials and renewable energy research to help convert wave energy to usable electricity. This prize is the first step in exploring DEEC-Tec’s potential for ocean wave energy conversion.
Competitors will use innovative methods to identify DEEC-Tec components and materials that have high techno-economic potential for wave energy converters. Successful concepts developed through this prize are those that show the greatest techno-economic potential to contribute to grid-scale power systems.
Through this prize, WPTO seeks 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.
Funding Information
- Total cash prizes: $2,300,000
- Prize description:
- Phase I: Up to 20 teams can each win $15,000 in cash awards
- Phase II: Up to 15 teams can each win $50,000 in cash awards
- Phase III: Up to five teams can each win $250,000 in cash awards.
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 the entity otherwise meets the eligibility requirements; the entity is incorporated in and maintains a primary place of business in the United States; and 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.
For more information, visit U.S. Department of Energy.
