Austin, TX – The student winners in the EnergyTech University Prize (EnergyTech UP) 2024 were announced by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) at the prize’s National Pitch Event on April 15 at Zpryme’s Energy Thought Summit in Austin, Texas.

At the event, three National Winners and 13 Bonus Prize Winners were selected for their innovative business plans for bringing a DOE National Laboratory-developed or other high-potential energy technology to market. This year’s winners were chosen from a starting cohort of 225 competing teams made up of students attending 117 different schools from across the country. This year, the finalist teams pitching at the event could win any of the prizes they were eligible for (i.e., a Technology Bonus Prize Finalist could become a National Winner, or a Regional Finalist could take home a Technology Bonus Prize).

“Every year, we are so impressed by the creativity and thoughtfulness that teams put into their business plans,” said DOE Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of OTT, Dr. Vanessa Z. Chan. “This year, we heard from teams that developed innovative business plans for solar, long duration energy storage, biofuel solutions, and more.”

The national winners, chosen from among the finalists named after the regional Explore Events, were awarded cash prizes as follows:

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

Geothermal Technologies Office

• Team Geo@MIT from 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

Also announced at the EnergyTech UP National Pitch Event was the launch of the next iteration of the collegiate competition. Next year’s competition, EnergyTech UP 2025, will be underway soon. Visit the EnergyTech UP page on HeroX, the official competition platform, to stay up to date on how to get involved.

About the Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions 

The Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) is one of the largest supporters of technology commercialization in the federal government. Founded in 2015, OTT bolsters the technology industry’s market skills and enables clean energy technologies to progress through research, development, demonstration, and to deployment into the private sector to meet our nation’s climate goals. Visit us at energy.gov/technologytransitions to learn more, and subscribe to receive our latest opportunities and accomplishments via email. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.