The 20 teams to advance to the semifinals of the sixth round of the multi-million dollar American-Made Solar Prize have been announced. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Solar Energy Technologies told the semi-finalists. And each will receive $50,000 in cash.
In addition, in the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Competition, two teams received a cash prize of $25,000 for their participation. The competition encourages solutions that enable disadvantaged communities to overcome systemic barriers to solar energy deployment.
The semi-finalists advancing in the multi-million dollar prize are:
Photovoltaic (PV)
- Mirai Solar: Retractable Solar Modules for Buildings and Beyond (Mountain View, CA)
- PI Energy: Ultra-thin, flexible photovoltaics for more surfaces (San Diego, CA)
- Beam Solar: The Beam Module: Prefabricated Solar Power for Commercial Rooftops (San Francisco, CA)
- Noria Energy: Free-standing, wireless tether for floating solar (Sausalito, CA)
- Portable Solar: Ground-Based Mounting System for Rural Solar (Miami, FL) – JEDI Competition Winner
- SolTek Nano: Maximizing Efficiency (Las Vegas, NV)
- Snow-Free Solar: Facilitating Snow Removal from Solar Panels (Toledo, OH)
- RUTE Foundation Systems: Overcoming the high-cost agrivoltaic hurdle (Portland, OR)
- Crack Catcher AI: Crack Catcher AI (Klamath Falls, OR)
Systems Integration.
- ReJoule: Second Life Solar (Signal Hill, CA)
- Vellex Computing: Grid-on-a-Chip: Accelerating Solar Interconnection (Sunnyvale, CA)
- Grid Edge Management: The World’s Most Reliable Inverter (Cary, NC)
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP)
- Innovation in Hawaii: Off-grid solar thermal desalination with MEDAD (Honolulu, HI) – JEDI Competition Winner
Financing and business models
- SandBox Solar: SolarBound Build Confidence Build Trust Build Solar (Fort Collins, CO)
- Edgeli: Shared data, smaller queues, more interconnections (Portland, ME)
- Hail Cat: identifying, quantifying and mitigating hail risk (San Jose, CA)
Systems Operations
- Latimer Controls: Latimer Controls enables smart solar (Boulder, CO)
- SatAlpha: Autonomous solar panel inspections (New York, NY)
System Design
- Solesca: Advancing Agrivoltaics (Chicago, IL)
- LEAF: Solar Design Assistant (Akron, OH)
These teams will compete in the next round of the competition, which will end in April 2023.
It can be of your interest: November 2022 – Funding opportunities to power a better world
