Digitizing Utilities Prize
Help electric utilities tackle data and cybersecurity challenges to advance grid reliability and resiliency, and mitigate cybersecurity risks with Round 2 of the Digitizing Utilities Prize!
The $2.15 million Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2—launched by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity—aims to connect utilities with interdisciplinary teams of software developers and data experts to transform digital systems and data analytics for utilities in the energy sector. With support from the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, this round will also address cybersecurity threats and risks with demonstrated improvements in risk identification, analysis, prediction, or proactive response for enhanced protection of digital energy infrastructures.
Prize Background
The electric industry sector is facing an “explosion” of data coming from a variety of sources. Recent advances in sensor technologies allow utilities to access fast-streaming data sets, challenging traditional methods of data acquisition, use, and storage. To fully utilize the massive influx of data from these sensors, the electricity sector must undergo a transformation in how it manages data quality, storage, and processing. Traditional data storage and management tools in utilities may not be well suited to the large volumes, variety, and velocity of the data.
The Office of Electricity is committed to accelerating research, development, and demonstration of new technologies and tools within the electricity sector. One method of obtaining innovative research and ideas is the American-Made Digitizing Utilities Prize.
Following a successful Round 1, DOE is excited to launchRound 2 of the Digitizing Utilities Prize. This prize contains two phases—Plan and Progress—to incentivize competitors to develop innovative solutions to transform data analytics and system digitization for utilities, such as energy use data, synchrophasor data, weather data, fire assessment data, cybersecurity, and more.
DOE invites anyone, individually or as a team, to compete to work with utilities to build solutions for the identified digital transformation needs. Solutions developed under this prize will be used to guide the broader utility community with methods to solve data-related challenges.
Competitor Tracks
This prize invites competitors to propose software solutions meet challenges in one or both competitor tracks:
Track 1 Utility Digitization/Data Challenge
Track 2 Utility Cybersecurity Challenge
Competitors must identify whether the solution applies to Track 1, Track 2, or both within the application. Applicants who choose to compete in both Track 1 and Track 2 are eligible to receive prizes from both tracks.
Phase 1 - Plan
Competitors will identify a utility partner and demonstrate a thorough understanding of the utility’s presented problem, as well as their ability to access relevant resources that can be leveraged for this prize. The teams will then define their approach and plan of action to solve the issue presented by the partner utility.
| Track | # of Winners | Prize Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Track 1: Utility Digitization/Data Challenge | Up to 9 | $75,000 cash prize each |
| Track 2: Utility Cybersecurity Challenge | Up to 2 | $175,000 cash prize each |
Phase 2 - Progress
Competitors will work side-by-side with their selected utility partner on their presented issue for 6 months to develop and refine a software solution that addresses the issues that the utilities are dealing with. At the end of Phase 2, teams will present their progress toward implementing their solution.
| Track | # of Winners | Prize Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Track 1: Utility Digitization/Data Challenge | Up to 3 | $200,000 cash prize each $75,000 voucher each |
| Track 2: Utility Cybersecurity Challenge | Up to 1 | $300,000 cash prize each |
Phase 1 Track 1 Winners
On July 17, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) announced nine Phase 1 Track 1 winning teams of the Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2. The following teams will now move on to Phase 2 of the prize where they’ll continue to develop their proposed solutions.
Soon, the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) will announce additional teams to be awarded $125,000 in cash prizes each for their proposed solutions toward the Utility Cybersecurity Challenge track (Track 2).
ChainSCADA, ChainSCADA: Blockchain Integration with DNP3
- Utility Partner: Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant
- Overview: This team will integrate blockchain-based PKI infrastructure to enhance security and trustworthiness of DNP3 communications, as well as streamline operations, improve regulatory compliance, and mitigate cybersecurity risks. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Enterprise Graph DB Team, Enterprise GraphDB to Better Data QA & Analytics
- Utility Partner: Alabama Power Company
- Project Partner: E Source
- Overview: This team will establish a cloud-based analytics “storefront” (using CosmosDB) to query a comprehensive, analytics-ready graph database that is powered via automated data validation pipelines from enterprise data sources. E Source will leverage the storefront for preliminary analytics use cases that have been identified. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Grid Elevated, MIDAAS Platform
- Utility Partner: Heber Light & Power
- Project Partner: Grid Elevated
- Overview: This team is developing the Multi-Source Data Acquisition, Analytics, Sharing, and Security (MIDAAS) Platform, a toolkit of secure data analytic modules built upon Grid Elevated’s data acquisition solution. The MIDAAS Platform provides the infrastructure to translate large amounts of data recently enabled by the energy transition to meaningful information to impact decision-making. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
NC Storm-Based Outage Prediction, NC Storm-Based Outage Prediction
- Utility Partner: North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives (NCEC)
- Project Partner: North Carolina State University
- Overview: This team aims to develop a predictive analytics tool to forecast storm-based outages in advance of weather phenomena to aid in making staffing and supply decisions. They will work to create software that NCEC and other cooperatives can use to provide real-time estimates on the likelihood of storm-based outages with a three and five-day lead time. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
RPG Lab, EV Load-Accelerated Cable Failure and Replacement
- Utility Partner: CenterPoint Energy (CNP)
- Project Partner: University of Houston
- Overview: This team plans to develop a data-driven proactive cable replacement method, aiming to address CNP’s concern on accelerated cable degradation and failure due to fast-growing EVs. Particularly, they will focus on projecting EV adoption rate and estimate future load profiles, as well as predicting cable remaining useful life (RUL) and estimating when the cable would fail and must be replaced. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Team Climformatics, Proactive Climate Risk Mitigation for Utilities
- Utility Partner: Xcel Energy
- Project Partner: Climformatics, Inc.
- Overview: This team aims to build an advanced software application that serves as a decision support tool for utilities to evaluate and mitigate the climate risks threatening the utility assets and user communities. This tool will provide actionable analytics for extreme weather events that occur up to a year in advance. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Team Plentiful, Pre-Computed DERs and Pre-Approved Interconnection
- Utility Partner: Portland General Electric (PGE)
- Project Partners: Forth, Qmerit, Resilient Edge, Charli Charging, City of Tigard
- Overview: This team plans to streamline installation and interconnection permitting processes by creating more holistic relationships between developers and utilities. Under this system, PGE will be able to pre-approve sites for interconnection based on pre-computed levels of DER deployment on those sites. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
Team Simple Thread, Graph the Grid: Modern Hosting Capacity Analysis
- Utility Partner: Dominion
- Project Partners: Simple Thread, Right Analytics
- Overview: This team aims to speed up the hosting capacity analysis and visualization process to free up engineers for higher order work for Dominion Energy and their stakeholders. They plan to leverage previously built software products within Dominion in partnership with Simple Thread to accelerate the process of further automating and hosting analysis to comply with FERC Order 2023. Watch an overview of their proposed solution.
UtilityAPI, Standardizing Vendor Connectivity to Utilities
- Utility Partner: Silicon Valley Clean Energy
- Project Partner: LF Energy
- Overview: This team plans to collaborate with technology companies and utilities to develop new standards that streamline third-party vendor registration and connectivity with utilities. Watch an overview of their solution.
Solutions that help shape the future
Are you a thinker, entrepreneur, facility, or potential partner? Anyone with an innovative idea can help promote transformation by participating in the American-Made Challenges.
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