News about the winners

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Introduction

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Department of Defense (DOD) and other sponsors, has organized an opportunity for qualified college and university engineering programs to compete for a major prize.  This is intended to be the first in a series of biannual competitions directed at energy-related issues and technologies.  The objective is to build prototype, low-cost inverters, in the 2001 Future Energy Challenge. This competition was originally open by proposal to schools in North America with ABET-accredited engineering programs or the equivalent.  Fourteen schools were accepted as participants.  The teams continue their work in anticipation of judging and testing during Summer 2001.  A 2003 Future Energy Challenge is in the early planning stages.

The 2001 Future Energy Challenge addresses the emerging field of distributed electricity generation systems. In the future, many local energy sources, such as photovoltaic units, fuel cells, small turbines, small hydroelectric plants, and other dispersed sources will become a larger fraction of our electrical supply. The 2001 Challenge seeks to dramatically improve the design and reduce the cost of dc-ac inverters and interface systems for use in distributed generation systems. DOE is joining with NASEO, the IEEE Power Electronics Society, the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, the IEEE Industry Applications Society, DOD, and others, to sponsor this competition with the goal of making these interface systems practical and cost effective. The objectives are to design elegant, manufacturable systems that would reduce the costs of commercial interface systems by at least 50% to below $50 per kilowatt and, thereby, accelerate the deployment of distributed generation systems in homes and buildings. Results will be judged on the basis of design quality, a formal engineering report, cost and cost analysis, prototype quality, and operational results. Schools have formed multi-disciplinary teams to address the energy source characteristics (selected from fuel cells, solar panels, or other direct energy conversion devices), design the power electronics, design packaging and thermal management systems, develop filtering and other interface sub-systems, analyze process costs and manufacturability, and perform economic and life-cycle cost analyses.

The hardware prototypes judged as best will be tested in a fuel cell system at a national DOE energy technology center. The school with the most cost-effective design that can meet the aggressive cost target and a fully functional prototype will win a prize of $50,000. Proposals will be judged by a distinguished panel of experts from the IEEE. The best results in individual categories, including electrical design, packaging, cost analysis, and engineering reports, will win special prizes of approximately $5,000 each.

Vision

Encourage the development of technologies to reduce the cost of inverters that are designed for distributed energy sources, such as made possible by renewable energy conversion and advanced fossil fuel conversion.

Incorporate practicality, potential manufacturability, and affordability into the competition assessment process.

Demonstrate technical progress toward and potential of advanced technologies that may help achieve the goals of this competition.

Improve engineering education and foster practical learning through the development of innovative team-based engineering solutions to complex technical problems.

Goal

Construct an inverter that will:

reduce the manufacturing cost to less than $500 for a 10 kW unit;

achieve minimum efficiency and size and weight requirements; and,

maintain acceptability in the areas of performance, reliability and safety.

Links to team information:

News page

Specification Expectation page

Frequently asked questions archive

There is also a separate private page intended for team members.  It contains official information.  All teams received prior instructions on how to access this material.