Supercharge the
Clean Energy
RevolutionPowered by U.S. Department of EnergyThe American-Made program is your fast track to the clean energy revolution. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, we incentivize innovation through prizes, training, teaming, and mentoring, connecting the nation’s entrepreneurs and innovators to America’s national labs and the private sector.
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A revolution of bold ideas
We are looking for diverse and passionate innovators like you to lead the clean energy revolution by joining the U.S. Department of Energy’s American-Made Challenges and Network.
From imagination to marketplace
We are building an innovation engine composed of training, connections, teaming, mentoring, and prizes that aims to support our nation’s most passionate innovators and fast-track bold new ideas.
Join the innovation revolution
We are developing opportunities for diverse innovators and entrepreneurs to join our community, make a difference, and create change. Bring your voice. Your ideas. Your background. This is your clean energy revolution.
What We're Made Of
250+
Network Members
$100M+
Cash Prizes and Team Support
300+
Teams Funded
American-Made is made possible by funding from the Department of Energy and the administration of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
How To Get Involved
Bring your ideas and creative solutions to compete in American-Made prizes, or help others succeed in building new businesses and technical solutions. As an innovator, partner, or Network member, you can make a difference.
Compete in a Prize Challenge
Participate in a variety of challenges with a chance to win cash prizes for your game-changing ideas. You can also gain technical assistance, mentorship, national recognition, and life-changing experiences.
View Open ChallengesLearn more about ChallengesConnect With Our Community
Be part of a diverse national community of inventors, technology experts, and business developers who are eager to help bring innovative ideas to life.
Get ConnectedLearn About Our Network
Partner with Us
You can partner with us in many ways to help accelerate innovation, build team capabilities, gain connections to early-stage innovators, and advance the clean energy revolution.
Work with UsSuccess Stories
Solar Prize Success Story:
Teacher Turned Entrepreneur
Amy Atchley’s background is in teaching. But when COVID started, she and her husband decided to do their own thing. She finished off the school year and jumped in full time—or time and a half, because that’s what you do as a startup entrepreneur—into their company, the r&d lab.
The r&d lab was one of two Round 4 winners of the American-Made Solar Prize, winning $650K in cash and $150K in technical assistance vouchers. The prize offers everyone—from seasoned professionals to budding entrepreneurs—the opportunity to earn funding and support for their ideas. The r&d lab’s winning concept was a metal residential roofing product designed to make solar roofs longer lasting, more aesthetically pleasing, and faster to install.
Amy Atchley
Winner, Solar Prize Round 4
Solar Prize Success Story:
From Designer to Solar Startup Owner
Our prizes encourage involvement from everyone with a vision for doing things a little bit differently. Adam Winsor was a designer who was freelancing drawings for patent applications. He came up with an idea—that solar panels could serve as a canvas of sorts, and that by etching designs inspired by mosaic tiles on the panels, he could make them into something aesthetically pleasing for parks, gardens, homes, and buildings.
Winning the Solar Prize transformed Adam into the owner of his own startup, Asoleyo Solar, and the American-Made Network connected him with the resources he needed to be successful.
Adam Winsor
Winner, Solar Prize Round 2
Fish Protection Prize Success Story
Modern Technology Meets Millenia of Evolution
Ben Mater and his team had to look no further than the evolution of aquatic species to find inspiration for their design. As a team of fish enthusiasts, Mater and his colleagues redesigned the shape of wedge-wire screens used in hydropower intake systems to mimic the gills of filter feeding fish, like manta rays.
As first-place winners of the Fish Protection Prize, his team took home $200,000 in cash and $100,000 in voucher support from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This gave Mater’s team the chance to build a prototype of their concept and work toward scaling it up for commercialization. This technology can not only benefit fish, but also industry waterway users who are aiming to create a safer, more sustainable way to generate power at hydro facilities.
Benjamin Mater
Grand Prize Winner, Fish Protection Prize
Fish Protection Prize Success Story
Less is More
Sometimes the simplest designs are the most innovative and effective technologies. Sterling Watson is a senior mechanical engineer at Natel Energy who realized that fish protection doesn’t have to be expensive or complex. Instead, it can be as simple as guiding fish to the safest pathway through a hydropower facility.
Earning third-place in the Fish Protection Prize, Watson’s team took home $75,000 in cash and $100,000 in voucher support from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This gave Watson’s team access to the brainpower and physical testing resources available at a national lab, as well as the financial resources needed to refine their design and pursue field implementation and commercialization.
Sterling Watson
Grand Prize Winner, Fish Protection Prize