The U.S. Department of Energy American-Made Challenges (AMC) program incentivizes the nation’s entrepreneurs to strengthen American leadership in energy innovation and domestic manufacturing. These new challenges seek to lower the barriers U.S.-based innovators face in reaching manufacturing scale. The AMC program accelerates the cycles of learning from years to weeks, while helping to create partnerships that connect entrepreneurs to the private sector and the network of DOE’s National Laboratories across the nation.
Led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the AMC program awards prizes to those who successfully navigate a series of competitions, or “challenges” that seek to develop and improve select energy technology areas in the AMC portfolio. These include water, geothermal, solar and buildings.
The FSEC Energy Research Center (FSEC ERC) has joined the AMC as both a Connector and a Power Connector. Connectors are the core component of the American-Made Network and are organizations that seek to support the efforts of competitors of the American-Made Challenges. Power Connectors are a core group of incubators, universities, and other industry organizations that work alongside NREL to perform critical program tasks, which include recruiting teams, hosting events, and providing assistance for the national prize competition. FSEC-ERC will support the AMC in four task areas: event management, outreach, team support, and network/partnership engagement.
For more information about FSEC’s participation in the AMC Network, contact Colleen Kettles at ckettles@fsec.ucf.edu.
Solar Prize Round 5
Enter the U.S. Department of Energy’s American-Made Challenges (AMC) Solar Prize Round 5 by Oct. 5, 2021.
Round 5 has two separate tracks that focus on Hardware and Software components:
- Hardware Track: Focuses on a physical component, manufacturing process, or producible product
- Software Track: Focuses on communications, computation, data systems, information technology, or business models with a software focus.
- Learn more at: https://americanmadechallenges.org/solarprize/.
Need technical assistance? FSEC ERC is a designated Connector and can help you. Reach out to Colleen Kettles.
[Last updated: 09/07/2021]