Following a successful Round 1, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Electricity launched Round 2 of the $2.15 million Digitizing Utilities Prize, with support from DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response. This prize connects utilities with interdisciplinary teams of software developers and data experts to transform digital systems and data analytics for utilities in the energy sector.
The electricity sector is facing an “explosion” of data coming from a variety of sources.
Recent advances in sensor technologies allow utilities to access fast-streaming data sets, challenging traditional methods of data acquisition, use, and storage. To fully utilize the massive influx of data from these sensors, the electricity sector must undergo a transformation in how it manages data quality, storage, and processing.
The Digitizing Utilities Prize supports competitors as they develop innovative solutions to transform data analytics and system digitization for utilities, such as energy use data, synchrophasor data, weather data, fire assessment data, and more. In Round 2, innovators have the option to focus specifically on addressing cybersecurity threats and risks through demonstrated improvements in risk identification, analysis, prediction, or proactive response for enhanced protection of digital energy infrastructures.
Through this prize, teams will identify a utility partner facing a digitization, data, or cybersecurity challenge and propose a solution for solving it. Proposed challenges and solutions must have an implementation path within the utility partner. Topics can include, but are not limited to:
Addressing data quality, interoperability, and processing at the source of data generation within a utility
Increasing a utility’s resilience to cyberattacks
Integrating data sets across different sources, including both inside and outside a utility
Developing data analytic systems to improve resilience and system operation, including predicting asset health and maintenance needs
Utilizing energy data to improve energy equity efforts within a utility
Developing data analytic systems to address wildfires, earthquakes, storms, and other natural hazards
Providing better data visualization and informational displays as well as enhanced user experience to operators and engineers at utilities
Improving a utility’s ability to evaluate and integrate new software tools
Automating menial operational and analytical tasks within utilities in a transparent manner
Making operational data available for use within utilities while maintaining security
Automating data anonymization and data set creation for secure sharing with outside researchers and third parties.
For the Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2, DOE has a specific interest in problems and solutions around cybersecurity, including mitigating the most significant cybersecurity threats and risks to U.S. critical infrastructure.
Competitor Tracks
This prize invites competitors to propose software solutions meet challenges in one or both competitor tracks:
Track 1: Utility Digitization/Data Challenge
Track 2: Utility Cybersecurity Challenge
Competitors must identify whether the solution applies to Track 1, Track 2, or both within the application. Applicants who choose to compete in both Track 1 and Track 2 are eligible to receive prizes from both tracks.
Phases and Prize Amounts
This competition has two phases—Plan and Progress—to drive accelerated development of the most promising ideas.
Phase 1 – Plan
Competitors will connect with a utility partner, identify a data and/or cybersecurity challenge, and propose a solution to that problem. Teams will then demonstrate a thorough understanding of the problem, as well as their ability to access relevant resources that can be leveraged for this prize.
Track
# of Winners
Prize Amount
Track 1: Utility Digitization/Data Challenge
Up to 9
$75,000 cash prize each
Track 2: Utility Cybersecurity Challenge
Up to 2
$175,000 cash prize each
For more information on Phase 1 and the required submission materials, please review the Official Rules. Any questions unanswered in the rules document can be asked during the prize’s upcoming webinar or raised in the Forum Tab, where a prize administrator will publicly respond.
Phase 2 – Progress
Competitors will work side-by-side with their selected utility partner on their presented issue for 6 months to develop and refine a software solution that addresses the issues that the utilities are dealing with. At the end of Phase 2, teams will present their progress toward implementing their solution.
Track
# of Winners
Prize Amount
Track 1: Utility Digitization/Data Challenge
Up to 3
$200,000 cash prize each
$75,000 voucher each
Track 2: Utility Cybersecurity Challenge
Up to 1
$300,000 cash prize
Competitor Eligibility
The competition is open only to private entities (for-profits and nonprofits); nonfederal government entities such as states, counties, tribes, and municipalities; academic institutions; and individuals, subject to the requirements in the Official Rules.
Past competitors of the Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 1 are encouraged to reapply with updated submission materials; however, teams who won any phase of Round 1 are discouraged from submitting the same or similar idea to this round or any future round of the prize.
Form a Winning Team
Whether you’re a single applicant searching for a utility partner or a utility team seeking a teammate with a particular skillset, our prize partners can help you search for the right fit. Learn more during a 30-minute conversation with prize partner, yet2.
Competitors should be working with their utility partner to develop and refine their identified solutions from Phase 1.
All teams, regardless of track, are also required to participate in the Virtual Demo Day on December 10th. A finalized and complete schedule will be released roughly 30 days prior to the event.
Competitors are encouraged to review the latest version of the Official Rules, found under the Resources tab in HeroX.
The Progress Phase webinar recording and slide deck can be found under the Resources tab.
Reminders for Competitors in the Utility Digitization/Data Challenge Track:
Competitors should review the new Progress Phase narrative question regarding your plans for a national laboratory voucher.
Competitors are encouraged to review the Voucher Guidelines, which can also be found under the Resources tab.
All teams competing in either the Utility Digitization/Data Challenge Track or the Utility Cybersecurity Challenge Track should begin, if not already have begun, working with their utility partner to develop, test, and implement their identified solution for their Progress Phase submission.
The Digitizing Utilities Prize Team will be hosting a Phase 2 webinar on August 19th at 1PM EST to cover Phase 2 submission details, the virtual demo day, and vouchers. Team captains will receive an email link to the webinar.
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response recently announced two Phase 1 Track 2 winning teams of the Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2. The following teams will now move on to Phase 2 of the prize where they’ll continue to develop their proposed solutions with the additional winners from Track 1.
Fend Incorporated, Unleash Data and Physically Block Cyberattacks
Utility Partner: Matanuska Electric Association, Inc (MEA)
Project Partner: Fend Incorporated
This team aims to expand the number and types of equipment across MEA’s infrastructure to be monitored by Fend’s data diode technology, as well as integrate this data into alerting platforms that make use of predictive analytics to help MEA spot problems before they occur. Watch an overview of their solution.
LATEOS, GRID-CARE
Utility Partner: Holy Cross Energy
Project Partner: Siemens
This team aims toidentify the most critical threats affecting power systems operations based on AI-tools and power system simulations, taking into direct consideration their impact on the power system operation, as quantified by key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be defined to better fit the operator’s procedures and needs. Watch an overview of their solution.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) today announcednine Phase 1 Track 1 winning teams of the Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2. The following teams will now move on to Phase 2 of the prize where they’ll continue to develop their proposed solutions.
Soon, the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) will announce additional teams to be awarded $125,000 in cash prizes each for their proposed solutions toward the Utility Cybersecurity Challenge track (Track 2).
ChainSCADA, ChainSCADA: Blockchain Integration with DNP3
Utility Partner: Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant
This team will integrate blockchain-based PKI infrastructure to enhance security and trustworthiness of DNP3 communications, as well as streamline operations, improve regulatory compliance, and mitigate cybersecurity risks. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Enterprise Graph DB Team, Enterprise GraphDB to Better Data QA & Analytics
Utility Partner: Alabama Power Company
Project Partner: E Source
This team will establish a cloud-based analytics “storefront” (using CosmosDB) to query a comprehensive, analytics-ready graph database that is powered via automated data validation pipelines from enterprise data sources. E Source will leverage the storefront for preliminary analytics use cases that have been identified. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Grid Elevated, MIDAAS Platform
Utility Partner: Heber Light & Power
Project Partner: Grid Elevated
This team is developing the Multi-Source Data Acquisition, Analytics, Sharing, and Security (MIDAAS) Platform, a toolkit of secure data analytic modules built upon Grid Elevated’s data acquisition solution. The MIDAAS Platform provides the infrastructure to translate large amounts of data recently enabled by the energy transition to meaningful information to impact decision-making. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Utility Partner: North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives (NCEC)
Project Partner: North Carolina State University
This team aims to develop a predictive analytics tool to forecast storm-based outages in advance of weather phenomena to aid in making staffing and supply decisions. They will work to create software that NCEC and other cooperatives can use to provide real-time estimates on the likelihood of storm-based outages with a three and five-day lead time. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
RPG Lab, EV Load-Accelerated Cable Failure and Replacement
Utility Partner: CenterPoint Energy (CNP)
Project Partner: University of Houston
This team plans to develop a data-driven proactive cable replacement method, aiming to address CNP’s concern on accelerated cable degradation and failure due to fast-growing EVs. Particularly, they will focus on projecting EV adoption rate and estimate future load profiles, as well as predicting cable remaining useful life (RUL) and estimating when the cable would fail and must be replaced. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Team Climformatics, Proactive Climate Risk Mitigation for Utilities
Utility Partner: Xcel Energy
Project Partner: Climformatics, Inc.
This team aims to build an advanced software application that serves as a decision support tool for utilities to evaluate and mitigate the climate risks threatening the utility assets and user communities. This tool will provide actionable analytics for extreme weather events that occur up to a year in advance. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Team Plentiful, Pre-Computed DERs and Pre-Approved Interconnection
Utility Partner: Portland General Electric (PGE)
Project Partners: Forth, Qmerit, Resilient Edge, Charli Charging, City of Tigard
This team plans to streamline installation and interconnection permitting processes by creating more holistic relationships between developers and utilities. Under this system, PGE will be able to pre-approve sites for interconnection based on pre-computed levels of DER
deployment on those sites. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Team Simple Thread, Graph the Grid: Modern Hosting Capacity Analysis
Utility Partner: Dominion
Project Partners: Simple Thread, Right Analytics
This team aims to speed up the hosting capacity analysis and visualization process to free up engineers for higher order work for Dominion Energy and their stakeholders. They plan to leverage previously built software products within Dominion in partnership with Simple Thread to accelerate the process of further automating and hosting analysis to comply with FERC Order 2023. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
UtilityAPI, Standardizing Vendor Connectivity to Utilities
Utility Partner: Silicon Valley Clean Energy
Project Partner: LF Energy
This team plans to collaborate with technology companies and utilities to develop new standards that streamline third-party vendor registration and connectivity with utilities. Watch an overview of their solution.
Thank you to all teams who applied for Round 2 of the Digitizing Utilities Prize. Our judges were impressed with the applications submitted and hope each team will continue to apply for American-Made challenges in the future.
A new opportunity from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) and the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) is making $100,000 in vouchers available to everyday innovators who could benefit from the help of national laboratories.
The $2.1 million TCF Open Voucher Call was created to provide the public with opportunities to receive technical assistance from researchers at U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory facilities. Successful applicants will receive vouchers—valid for testing and validation, use of specialized equipment or software, simulation or modeling, consulting, or various other requests from a National Laboratory—which will ultimately allow them to advance their technologies. It aims to inspire a new generation of innovative researchers and instill a sense of shared responsibility for advancing knowledge and innovation within the scientific community.
A select number of $100,000 vouchers will be awarded to people with big ideas for advancing clean energy, sustainability, or other key national lab-supported initiatives. The vouchers can be redeemed at one of eight national labs, which will then provide expertise and lab validation capabilities to the awardee to help them advance their concept closer to commercialization.
Anyone interested in exploring the opportunity is encouraged to join an informational webinar on July 18 at 2 p.m. ET follow the TCF Open Voucher Call on HeroX to stay up to date on upcoming dates, deadlines, and important news.
