The U.S. Department of Energy has launched the American-Made Geothermal Manufacturing Prize, a competition designed to bring together the additive manufacturing and geothermal energy industries. The 18-month competition officially began on April 29, 2020, and will run through four successive contests with progressively higher cash and voucher incentives totaling $3.25 million in prizes.
The prize features a unique partnership structure, with funding from both the DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office and Advanced Manufacturing Office. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is administering the competition, while Oak Ridge National Laboratory serves as a technical partner for the first time in American-Made Challenges history. “One exciting aspect about this prize is that we are targeting two groups and trying to bring them together,” said Sarah Gomach, Geothermal Prize program lead at NREL.
The competition consists of four contests named Ready!, Set!, Make!, and Geo! The Ready! Contest will select 20 winners to split $500,000, followed by the Set! Contest with 10 winners splitting $1 million. Five teams will advance from the Make! Contest to share $750,000, and two final winners will split the remaining $1 million while moving their projects to market.
The prize aims to address the challenges of operating in harsh geothermal environments by leveraging additive manufacturing technologies. Geothermal energy can be harnessed around the clock regardless of weather conditions, and typically requires a smaller footprint than coal, wind, and solar power plants. According to Gomach, the competition is open to anyone with relevant ideas, stating “It could be people in the oil and gas community or those with design experience.”
Source: nrel.gov