Energizing Rural Communities Prize
The Energizing Rural Communities Prize is for teams to build essential partnerships or secure the capital needed to help a rural or remote community improve their energy systems and advance clean energy demonstration projects.
Energizing Rural Communities Prize
The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) launched the $15 million Energizing Rural Communities Prize to challenge individuals and organizations to develop partnership plans or innovative financing strategies to help rural or remote communities improve their energy systems and advance clean energy demonstration projects.
This prize is part of OCED's $1 billion Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas (ERA) Program which was created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to demonstrate new ways to improve the resilience, reliability, safety, availability, and environmental performance of energy systems serving our nation's rural or remote areas with populations of no more than 10,000 people. The ERA program reflects the Biden-Harris Administration's commitment to ensure no communities are left behind in the historic transition to a clean energy future.
Nearly 50 million Americans live in rural or remote areas where energy costs are often disproportionately high and service can be unreliable. The ERA Program found that two of the primary barriers to improving rural and remote energy systems are the limited access to partners and to funding.
Prize Structure
The Energizing Rural Communities Prize has 2 tracks, and each track has 2 phases.
Track 1: Partner
The Partner track focused on strategies to build or improve partnerships that connect rural or remote communities to government funding, technical assistance, or a support ecosystem to help implement clean energy demonstration projects.
Track 2: Finance
The Finance track focused on developing innovative business models and approaches to community ownership models that help finance clean energy demonstration projects in rural or remote areas.
Phase One winning teams received $100,000 awards and in-kind mentorship and other support services during the 12-month period following winner announcements.
The 33 Phase Two winning teams received an additional $200,000.
Click here to see the winners in each track of the two prize phases.