The American-Made Solar Prize Round 8 is a $4 million competition designed to support U.S. solar manufacturing and address challenges to rapid, equitable solar energy deployment by incentivizing hardware and software development.
Solar Energy Technologies Office
June 14, 2024
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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced the American-Made Solar Prize Round 8—a $4 million prize program designed to spur innovations in the nation’s solar hardware and software technologies and address challenges to rapid, equitable solar energy deployment.
Anyone based in the United States with a potentially marketable solar technology solution is eligible to compete and can sign up on the HeroX prize platform. Potential applicants include students, professors, small business owners, and researchers. This challenge requires competitors to make progress quickly, form private-sector partnerships, and engage customers to bring ideas to life. Competitors will have access to the American-Made Network to find partners and testing facilities to accelerate their progress.
DOE is interested in solar hardware and software technologies. Hardware innovations should be able to be manufactured in the United States. Software innovations should help address the non-hardware costs of solar, like customer acquisition, financing, and grid integration.
Competitors will participate in three escalating challenges—the Ready!, Set!, and Go! Contests—as they develop their concepts from ideas to products. Individually, each competitor can win up to $700,000 in cash and $150,000 in technical support vouchers over the course of the three contests.
Competitors have the opportunity in each contest to also compete in the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Contest. Should they opt in, at each stage, the competitors will describe how their solutions address solar market barriers faced by underserved communities and work to substantially advance their approaches toward JEDI goals.
Another component of the American-Made Solar Prize Round 8 is the Power Up Contest, which is designed to support and advance new and diverse teams that have compelling applications but are not selected as Ready! Contest winners. Based on those submissions, DOE expects to select up to 10 teams to split a $100,000 prize pool and participate in the Power Up Program, where they will receive tailored business development support.
The deadline to apply for the Ready! Contest was September 26.
Learn more about this prize and other open funding opportunities within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.