Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Prize Round 3

Congratulations to the five Phase 2 winners of EPIC Round 3 who will advance to negotiate a 3-year cooperative agreement with DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) worth $1 million!  

These accelerators and incubators have developed comprehensive, creative plans to support clean energy startups and entrepreneurs in their communities.  

Phase 2 Winners  

Phase 2 winners represent a range of organization types and energy technology industries, and their programs offer a range of support from coaching and mentoring to tech validation and partnership development.  

The EPIC Round 3 Phase 2 winners are:  

• Arrowhead Center at NMSU, Las Cruces, NM - Arrowhead RenewTech Incubator will build on in-house incubator offerings, focusing on emerging energy and water technologies. Cohorts will either work with national lab technologies available for licensing or solve community/industry challenges with their own or lab technologies.  
• ClimateHaven, Inc., New Haven, CT - ClimateHaven MVP will provide business support services to companies in Connecticut, focusing on early-stage companies, with sector-specific support in the field of green chemistry/engineering.   
• Dominion Energy Innovation Center, Ashland, VA - DEIC Hyperscaled will focus specifically on startups related to or supporting data center energy usage, offering a trial pre-accelerator mentoring program for 3-5 former EPIC finalists.  
• Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust (PRSTRT), San Juan, Puerto Rico - Project Switch will build on PRSTRT's success with its Parallel18 accelerator program, with the goal of centering Puerto Rico as the premier hub of energy innovation in the Americas.   
• Spark Innovation Center, Knoxville TN - SparkShop will provide product development support, resources, and training designed to help cleantech startups accelerate market entry, validate technology, and boost investor confidence.   

Read the full announcement on energy.gov to get more info on the prize, the winners, and the EPIC program. 

Please note that the EPIC Round 3 Phase 2 winner announcement has been postponed to mid-December. The HeroX Timeline has been updated accordingly. 

Thank you for your patience, and we look forward to announcing winners soon!

Please visit the EPIC Round 3 HeroX page for more info.  

The second phase of the EPIC Round 3 Prize is closing this Monday, Sept. 30 at 5 p.m. ET! Phase 2 competitors, all of whom must be Phase 1 winners, will need to submit their submission materials by this date.

Remember – Teams can find the Phase 2 submission requirements in the Official Prize Rules and optional templates to help craft their Phase 2 submissions under the Prize "Resources" tab.

Phase 2 competition results are anticipated to be announced in early November, and winning teams will be offered the chance to negotiate a three-year cooperative agreement with the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT)!

We look forward to seeing the progress our Phase 1 winners have made. Good luck to the competitors!

Three startups and have been named winners in the Fall 2024 EPIC Pitch Competition! More than $100,000 in cash prizes were awarded after startups pitched their groundbreaking energy technologies to a crowd of professionals and panel of experts at the RE+ Convention in Anaheim, CA. 

The six finalists presented their technology, market strategy, business model, and team as reviewers scored their presentation skills, content, and investment potential. Winning teams were then selected before being announced in front of a live audience at the conference.  

Read the full announcement on energy.gov.  
 
Meet the Fall 2024 EPIC Pitch Competition Winners 

• First Place - $50,000: Safire Technology Group, Inc. (Knoxville, TN)
• Second Place - $20,000: Helix Earth Technologies (Houston, TX)
• Third Place - $10,000: AtmosZero, Inc. (Fort Collins, CO) 

  First Place Nominating Incubator - $25,000: Spark Innovation Center

The prize team would like to thank and recognize all of the competition finalists for presenting their innovative technologies that are driving our nation’s sustainability efforts forward. Stay tuned for news on future EPIC opportunities!     

Six cleantech startups nominated by past EPIC winners have been selected as finalists to compete in the upcoming Fall 2024 EPIC Startup Pitch Competition in Anaheim, CA! These teams will pitch theirideas on September 11 at the national RE+ Energy Conference – the largest clean-tech conference in North America - in the hopes of capturing the $50,000 grand prize! Winners will be announced live at the conference on the same day. 

Congratulations and good luck to the finalists: 

• AtmosZero, Inc. – Fort Collins, CO 
• Blip Energy - Chicago, IL 
• DG Matrix - Raleigh, NC
• Earth X Energy Corporation - Atlanta, GA 
• Helix Earth Technologies - Houston, TX
• Safire Technology Group, Inc. - Knoxville, TN 

We look forward to seeing which innovative team will take home the top prize. 

Good luck, finalists!