American-Made Program Shines Light on Innovation at RE+

American-Made Program Shines Light on Innovation at RE+

NREL Has a Major Presence at One of the Renewable Energy Industry's Key Conferences

For 20 years, the RE+ conference has served as a gathering place for clean energy professionals who come together to engage and connect on ways to propel the industry forward. For the last five of those years, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) American-Made program has partnered with RE+ to become a key player at the conference, helping American-Made innovators bring their technologies closer to commercialization and showcasing easy-access opportunities for clean energy development funding.

The American-Made program, administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis, incentivizes clean energy innovation through prize competitions, training, teaming, and mentoring. The program boasts a suite of more than 90 prizes seeking to advance technological development and capacity building across the country, many of which were represented at this year's RE+ in Anaheim, California.

A Live Grand Finale

American-Made's partnership with RE+ began in 2019 as a venue for Go! Demo Day, the culmination of the American-Made Solar Prize. The Solar Prize is a multimillion-dollar prize competition funded by DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Office that energizes U.S. solar innovation through a series of contests that accelerate the entrepreneurial process from years to months. Now, the Solar Prize event has become a mainstay at RE+, which hosted more than 40,000 attendees and 1,300 exhibitors this year.

During this year's Solar Prize Round 7 Go! Demo Day, competition finalists presented their pitches for innovative technologies that can advance solar adoption to conference attendees and a panel of industry experts. Fram Energy was selected as a grand prize winner for their solar adoption software solution, while Gritt Robotics won for their artificial intelligence solar installation robotics innovation. Two additional teams were awarded the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Prize for their innovations that address solar power accessibility and education.

"The Solar Prize was the prize that launched the American-Made program, and over seven rounds, it has generated revolutionary concepts that are kickstarting the solar industry," American-Made Program Manager Debbie Brodt-Giles said. "Having the finale at RE+ each year really magnifies the reach of the prize and these competitors' innovations. It's the ideal place to share how American-Made is empowering everyday citizens to contribute to the clean energy transition."

Expanding Presence and Purpose

American-Made's involvement at RE+ has grown beyond celebrating the Solar Prize to include other competition, network, and informational events to support past, current, and future prize competitors.

"What's helpful about being at a conference like RE+ is that it allows us to step out of the core technology that we're developing and realize how it fits into the broader renewable energy transition and solar market," said Skylar Bagdon, CEO of Verde Technologies, a past winner of the American-Made Perovskite Startup Prize. "Being here and seeing what the market really cares about helps us get out of the lab and get our technology out into the market where it will have an impact."

The Fall 2024 EPIC Pitch Competition featured six cleantech startups vying for cash prizes for their innovative clean energy-related pitches, with three startups and one incubator winning more than $100,000 total in cash prizes from DOE's Office of Technology Transitions, which funds the EPIC Pitch Competition.

DOE also announced several new prizes during the conference, including the Large Animal and Solar System Operations (LASSO) Prize, the Promoting Registration of Inverters and Modules with Ecolabel (PRIME) Prize, and the Community Power Accelerator Prize Round 3.

Labwide Impact at a Nationwide Event

In addition to those associated with the management of the American-Made program, NREL had robust representation at this year's conference, with researchers from nine centers specializing in clean energy systems, technologies, deployment, and analysis. Researchers hosted tech talks at the conference, sharing NREL expertise in the areas of solar grid integration, equitable transition strategies, market analysis, and more.

NREL's participation at the largest clean energy industry conference in North America allows the laboratory to share cutting-edge research and identify trends in the renewable energy industry, helping inform research needs and opportunities for partnerships.

"NREL's leadership in the solar space continues to be well represented at RE+ with dozens of staff representing prizes and new innovative research that is integral to the industry's success and rapid growth," Solar Laboratory Program Manager Mary Werner said. "NREL staff coordinate prizes, present their research results, attend educational sessions, explore the extensive exhibit halls, host project booths, and help guide the development of educational sessions at RE+ to increase our impact on the market and identify new partners for future research projects."

Learn more about the American-Made program, and subscribe to the American-Made Newsletter for updates on all future prize opportunities.