Congratulations to the student winners of the EnergyTech University Prize 2024! The announcement was made on April 15 at the conclusion of the National Pitch Event during Zpryme’s Energy Thought Summit in Austin, Texas. 

During the event, the 28 finalist teams pitched their business plans to a panel of industry judges. At the conclusion of the event, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions announced the three National Winners and 13 Bonus Prize Winners. 

  • First Place, awarded $50,000: Team Rise Reforming from The University of Chicago
    • Entry: Rise Reforming
  • Second Place, awarded $20,000: Team ProPika from the University of Arkansas
    • Entry: Biomass to Jet Fuel 
  • Third Place, awarded $10,000: Team Ion Clean PV from Hawai’i Pacific University
    • Entry: IonCleanPV: Waterless Electrostatic PV Cleaning

In addition, 13 teams took home bonus prizes—and $22,000 in cash each—in the following categories. 

Office of Technology Transitions 

  • Undergraduate-Only Winner: Team GarboCarbo from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley
    • Entry: GarboCarbo: Cleaning Paper & Construction Sectors
  • National Lab IP Licensing: Team EcoGrains from the University of Notre Dame
    • Entry: EcoGrains: 'Sustainable Bioenergy Solutions'  

Building Technologies Office

  • Team HeatVault from the Georgia Institute of Technology
    • Entry: HeatVault: Heat Recovery as a Service

Geothermal Technologies Office

  • Team Geo@MIT from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Entry: Advanced GDHC/Thermal Storage Systems at Colleges

Hydrogen Fuel Technologies Office

  • Team ECHO Solutions from the University of Houston
    • Entry: Electrochemical Carbon and Hydrogen from the Ocean 

Office of Electricity

  • Team FlowCellutions from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University
    • Entry: Flow Battery Diagnostics for Energy Reliability
  • Team OptiGen from Duke University
    • Entry: OptiGen-State of the Art Power Generation Dispatch
  • Team ClimateWatt from Rice University
    • Entry: MASTERRI: Making Electric Grids Happy & Resilient

Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management

  • Team EarthFlow AI from Stanford University
    • Entry: EarthFlow AI: Accelerating Subsurface Clean Energy

Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains

  • Team COMPScan from Texas A&M University 
    • Entry: COMPScan: Saving Money in the Air

Office of Nuclear Energy

  • Team Molten Salt Consulting from Snow College
    • Entry: Molten Salt Consulting Inc.

Solar Energy Technologies Office: 

  • Team Agrivoltaic Design Studio from Cornell University
    • Entry: Agrivoltaic Design Studio

Water Power Technologies Office

  •  Team KelpNext from the University of Michigan 
    • Entry: KelpNext

Congratulations to all of the competing teams on their accomplishments throughout EnergyTech UP! And don’t forget that next year’s competition will be underway soon—check back here to stay up to date on how to get involved.