Newly Named Solar Prize Round 6 Finalists Bring Innovation to Light

10 Teams Awarded Cash Prizes and Technical Support Vouchers To Compete in Final Go! Contest

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The latest round of finalists in the American-Made Solar Prize have been announced. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) selected 10 teams from across the country to move on to the Go! Contest and awarded each team $100,000 in cash prizes and $75,000 in technical support vouchers.

Finalist selections took place after the virtual Set! Contest Demo Day on April 4, where the 20 semifinalists participated in a question-and-answer session with a panel of industry judges. The 10 teams chosen to move on to the Go! Contest will now work to produce refined prototypes and perform pilot tests of their innovations that were engineered to advance the solar industry in some way.

Celebrating Five Years of Solar Innovation

The Solar Prize, the prize that launched the American-Made program, is celebrating its 5-year anniversary this year. The prize was created to kickstart innovations within the solar industry that boost efficiency, cost effectiveness, and widespread adoption of this abundant renewable energy source. This round's competing teams have been working on technologies that range from unique applications for photovoltaic (PV) panels (think panels above cattle pastures) to software that optimizes land use for solar installations and self-cooling inverters.

"Over the last five years, the Solar Prize has produced game-changing innovations that have already been put to good use in the industry," said Debbie Brodt-Giles, Solar Prize administrator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "We're so proud of the fresh ideas that have been born from this prize and how it has made a real impact on the advancement of solar energy in the United States."

That impact has become even broader in the last few years, since Solar Prize administrators introduced the optional Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Contest. Teams who wish to compete in the JEDI contest are eligible for an additional cash prize in each contest, provided their innovations include a solution that boosts underserved communities' access to solar deployment.

"DOE is committed to ensuring that everyone has access to clean energy as we make this transition to a carbon-free electrical grid," said DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office Director and Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable Power Becca Jones-Albertus. "So it only makes sense to ask Solar Prize competitors to consider how their innovations might be used to promote that accessibility."

Three teams, noted below, split an additional $50,000 prize pool.

Introducing the Finalists

The finalist teams moving on to the last contest in Solar Prize Round 6 are as follows:

Fliteworks (New York, NY): This team is developing software to automate drone piloting of solar site monitoring and enable site daily inspections. Automating monitoring can lower the cost of inspections, increase the frequency of inspections, and collect more data to improve the performance of solar farms.

NC Solar Inverters (Cary, NC): This team is developing a new, low-cost inverter that combines efficient, older technology with new control techniques to create a fully sealed inverter design that uses natural cooling. This allows for higher reliability and performance for utility-scale solar compared to other inverters on the market.

LEAF (Stow, OH): This team is developing a computer aided design (CAD) plugin that automates layout design of utility solar sites for solar engineers. This greatly decreases the manual redrawing of strings for each project, reducing labor hours and costs.

Latimer Controls, Inc. (Boulder, CO): This team is developing an intelligent control software that enables utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) to provide power reliably and on demand. This will replace grid reliance on fossil fuels, drive higher profitability for PV operators, and generate revenue increases for solar asset owners with low capital cost.

ReJoule's Second-Life Solar Team (Signal Hill, CA): This team is developing a fast, new method for testing the health of decommissioned electric vehicle (EV) batteries and using these batteries to develop an integrated solution for storing solar power and dispatching it at peak hours. This allows for fast screening of used batteries and certification for use in grid scale storage of solar energy. 
JEDI Contest Winner

Snow-Free Solar (Toledo, OH): This team is developing a durable strip coating that is applied to the lower edge of solar panels to help shed snow. By shedding snow from panels in a quick and low-cost way, solar plants continue to operate efficiently year-round. 
JEDI Contest Winner

RUTE Foundation Systems (Portland, OR): This team is developing a high-clearance single-axis tracker for PV systems meant to be integrated into active farmland (agrivoltaics). Using raised cables to stabilize and move the panels, this technology lowers costs and uses less steel than traditional agrivoltaic racking systems. 
JEDI Contest Winner

Noria Energy (Sausalito, CA): This team is developing autonomous motors for floating solar, replacing traditional anchors and mooring systems. This simplifies installation and reduces cost, redundant engineering for each project, and diving teams needed for installation.

Edgeli (Portland, ME): This team is developing a cloud-based, collaborative data and modeling platform for developers and utilities to use shared data, models, and maps to site and size solar energy projects. This software will result in faster approval times and fewer projects clogging the interconnection queue.

Solesca (Chicago, IL): This team is developing a utility-scale solar design platform to help solar developers identify promising solar sites. Features of this platform include site filtering, community sentiment information, and a live collaboration tool.

In the Go! Contest—as in all previous prize contests—finalists will have access to diverse and powerful support through the American-Made Network, which is composed of national laboratories, energy incubators, and other resources across the country.

Teams will also use their technical support vouchers to perform their pilot test ahead of the final Go! Contest Demo Day held at the RE+ Conference in September 2023. At the conclusion of the Go! Contest, two teams will be named winners, each earning $500,000 in cash and additional support vouchers. Select teams may also be awarded additional funds through their participation in the JEDI Contest.

Learn more about the Solar Prize, and subscribe to the American-Made Newsletter for updates on Round 6 and future opportunities to get involved.