On Sept. 29, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced seven Stage 1 finalists for the American-Made Solar Data Bounty Prize, with each team receiving a $5,000 cash prize. The seven teams will now move on to Stage 2 to compete for part of $1.4 million in cash prizes.
Based on competitor eligibility and the data richness of each application in Stage 1, prize judges selected seven datasets to advance to Stage 2—four Track A teams and three Track B teams. The submitted irradiance time series data from Stage 1 are expected to be posted to a publicly available archive by the end of 2023.
Stage 1 Finalists
The following teams were selected as winners in Stage 1 and will be invited to compete in Stage 2: The listed locations correspond to the locations of the entities and not necessarily the PV systems.
Track A Finalists: Medium-sized Systems
- Island Way Technology, LLC (Makawao, Hawaii)
- Namaste Solar Electric, Inc. (Denver, Colorado)
- Silicon Ranch Corporation (Nashville, Tennessee)
- Wexus Technologies Inc. (Colusa, California)
Track B Finalists: Large-sized Systems
- PPL Corporation (Allentown, Pennsylvania)
- Silicon Ranch Corporation (Nashville, Tennessee)
- Southern Power Company (Birmingham, Alabama)
Track A teams will compete for an $80,000 cash prize and Track B teams will compete for a $130,000 cash prize. Runner-up prizes of $30,000 and $50,000 in each track respectively may also be awarded to eligible teams. Winners and runners-up for each track are expected to be announced in late 2023.
Don’t forget to follow the Solar Data Bounty Prize on HeroX to stay up to date on additional announcements and important prize information.
Thank you to all who applied!
