Last week the Energy Department announced an unprecedented hackathon to create software solutions that make it easier, faster, and cost-effective for Americans to use solar energy for their lives. More than 700,000 developers, coders, and data scientists will take part in this set of software-related challenges in the race to win the chance to win up to $500,000 worth of prizes.
HTML0 is the SunShot Catalyst Prize program and a brand new model for the federal government’s agenda for research and development. Catalyst’s prize-related challenge framework exposes American innovators to various instruments and capabilities, data assets, and other resources created by the Energy Department and its national labs. Catalyst’s frenzied, open innovation cycle encourages crowdsourced participation and solid partnerships with the country’s ever-growing network of technology mentors, accelerators, and incubators.
January saw SunShot pick 17 up-and-coming teams to participate in the final Catalyst Prize competition. Each team competes for one prize of $100,000, which will be announced in May, and the prize pool of $500,000 for hackathons. While they battle towards the finish line, each finalist will be hosting at least four challenges during March and throughout the TopCoder platform and will collaborate with Appirio, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Appirio, and TopCoder’s 700,000 members to develop a prototype of their product within just 60 days.
Technology development, commercialization, and scaled-up manufacturing have drastically decreased solar hardware costs since the SunShot Initiative’s start. But, reducing the costs of non-hardware solar, like financing, acquisition of customer permits, installation inspection, labor, and other expenses, can help boost the U.S. growth in solar deployment over the next few years. These soft costs account for as much as 64% total cost of solar. Catalyst seeks to harness massive datasets and utilize cutting-edge technologies, applications, and automation tools to make installing solar power across America quicker and more affordable than ever before.