Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 3: Resilient Grid Innovation

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity has announced Round 3 of the Digitizing Utilities Prize: Resilient Grid Innovation with a total prize pool of $2.5 million. This competition is designed to incentivize technology partnerships between interdisciplinary teams, including utilities, energy sector partners, software developers, and data experts, to improve digital systems, data analytics, and grid resource integration. The competition focuses on addressing challenges in leveraging data from various sources, improving reliability and resilience, integrating renewable energy, and managing emerging complexities in the electric sector. The competition is divided into two tracks. Track 1: Resource Integration Under Uncertainty focuses on improving energy resource utilization and integration through uncertainty characterization and communication. Teams will work with energy sector partners to identify a challenge, propose a plan, and develop and demonstrate solutions. In Phase 1, up to eight teams will win $75,000 each and advance to Phase 2, where up to three winning teams will receive $200,000 each. Track 2: Sensors and Datasets for Integration of Inverter-Based Resources and Large Loads emphasizes using new grid-sensing capabilities and correlating sensor measurements with additional data sources. This track follows a similar format, with up to eight teams winning $75,000 in Phase 1 and up to three teams receiving $200,000 in Phase 2. Additionally, a Bonus Prize – Extremes Applications encourages solutions addressing challenges posed by extreme weather events, such as wildfires, hurricanes, and floods, and compound events that involve interacting extremes across spatial and temporal scales. Proposals in this area should focus on creating resilience strategies for such conditions. The competition is open to private entities (for-profit and nonprofit organizations), non-federal government entities (states, counties, tribes, and municipalities), and academic institutions. Competitors must partner with a U.S.-based energy sector partner, such as a utility or regional transmission operator, to participate. Each entity may submit one application per track and is required to present unique innovations for each track if competing in both. Submissions for Phase 1 must detail the challenge being addressed, the proposed approach, and its potential benefits to the energy sector. Phase 2 involves developing and demonstrating the solution and ensuring its replicability for broader energy sector adoption. Winners will be expected to contribute to public repositories such as the Grid Event Signature Library or Open Energy Data Initiative by providing links to datasets generated during the project. For more details, including submission materials and rules, potential applicants are encouraged to review the official competition documents.