- The American-Made program highlights the best clean energy innovations at RE+.
- Fram Energy and Gritt Robotics take home the big wins in the Solar Prize competition.
- The DOE announces new prizes in support of clean energy development.
- NREL researchers discuss new findings on renewable energy integration.
RE+ is an annual event which marks the 20th year of advancing renewable energy. This year in Anaheim, California, the conference attracted more than 40,000 attendees and was an important milestone for the American-made program, initiated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
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American-Made has been a partner with RE+ to support clean energy innovators through funding opportunities and showing prize-winning technologies that have the potential to shape renewable energy’s future for the last five years.
Since its merger with RE+ in 2019, the American-Made program has been one of the program’s highlights at this yearly conference. This partnership, in fact, was initially intended to be part of the final event at the American-made Solar Prize Go! Demo Day. As of today, though, it has become a key feature of the RE+.
The Solar Prize is indeed a huge competitive funding by DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office. It empowers U.S. solar startups by shortening their pathway to market, usually a matter of years, into a matter of months. This year, the event focused on finalists from Solar Prize Round 7, where competitors pitched innovative solar solutions to industry experts.
The showstopper of the live finale at RE+ went to Fram Energy for pioneering solar adoption software and Gritt Robotics for AI-powered solar installation robotics. Two teams also won the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Prize, whose solutions are designed to make solar power more accessible.
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As stated by American-Made Program Manager Debbie Brodt-Giles, hosting the Solar Prize finale at RE+ will amplify the impact of these innovations with a high visibility platform for cutting-edge ideas. “This event allows innovators from across the nation to share their work, contributing directly to the clean energy shift,” she said.
As Skylar Bagdon, CEO of Verde Technologies and past winner of this competition, notes, RE+ has always assisted him in identifying the valuable insights into a market that makes the laboratory research-based startups put it into real-world actual implementation.
The American Made program is way more expansive than the Solar Prize. The Fall 2024 EPIC Pitch Competition attracted six impressive cleantech startups and over $100,000 in prizes for them in this year’s conference.
The DOE also introduced several new prizes during the RE+ stage, 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. These initiatives are focused on supporting innovations across the renewable energy spectrum and advancing emerging sectors.
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The impact of NREL’s participation at RE+ was not limited to American-made. Researchers from nine centers at NREL reported on solar integration, just equitable energy transitions, the trends in markets, and more in the aggregate. NREL thus shapes the renewable energy landscape by both reporting on research contributions and discovering future opportunities for industry collaborations.
“NREL’s commitment to the expansion of solar and clean energy really shines through at RE+,” said Mary Werner, Program Manager for NREL’s Solar Laboratory. With numerous staff presenting, coordinating awards, and leading educational activities, NREL is really working hard to help set the renewable energy industry as it builds new relationships with partners for future work.
The American-made program partnering with RE+ represents a shared commitment toward promoting clean energy innovation and market-ready solutions. Together, DOE, NREL, and the RE+ conference are bringing forward transformative technologies and giving promising startups the platform to propel renewable energy into a brighter future.
