American-Made Challenges programme

Country / jurisdiction: United States · Year: 2018 · Status: In force · Level: National · Type: Voluntary

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and NREL initiated the programme to support innovative energy technologies with unique prizes. The programme provides non-dilutive cash prizes (i.e. public grants that are direct payments with unrestricted use) and in some cases, vouchers for national energy laboratories, networks, incubation support, and other qualified facilities. Prizes are designed in cooperation with DOE departments based on identified technology needs. Recipients can use laboratory vouchers to access equipment and expertise at the 17 national energy laboratories and other qualified facilities or spend part of the voucher at a private facility of the winner’s choice. NREL collects data related to the teams’ experiences during the programme, and these results are shared with the DOE.

As of the end of 2023, 73 prizes had been launched, of which 10 are completed, 13 are in progress and 4 are open for applications, with USD 250 million cash prizes funded to 650 teams. In 2024, the American-Made Challenges programme, active since 2018, launched new energy technology prizes. Among them, the Commercial direct air capture (DAC) Prize has a budget of USD 100 million, and prize levels of up to USD 3.4 million for the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) Purchase Pilot Prize and up to USD 12 million for the Commercial DAC Pilot Prize. Other prizes cover manufacturing energy infrastructure technologies (a USD 5 million maximum prize) and grids cybersecurity (a USD 0.2 million maximum prize). The multi-stage prizes include laboratory vouchers and access to networks of support for winners of each stage.

Official source: https://americanmadechallenges.org/