On April 27, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the winners of the Solar District Cup, a competition that challenges teams of college students to design innovative, cost-effective distributed energy systems for a district—a group of buildings with a common electrical distribution feeder.

“These students have backgrounds in a variety of academic disciplines, and that diversity is critical to supporting America’s changing energy landscape,” said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Daniel R Simmons. “The Solar District Cup helps prepare these students for jobs in the solar industry.”

The teams were assigned to three districts: Ball State University (Muncie, IN), Crystal Parks (Arlington, VA), and New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, NM). Thirty-five finalist teams from 32 institutions developed designs and built financial models for systems that integrated solar, storage, demand response, and other distributed technologies. 

On April 26, the finalists presented their projects to a panel of expert judges in a live video conference. Deputy Assistant Secretary David Solan announced the three winners virtually on April 27. The best designs showed the highest offset of annual energy consumption and greatest financial savings for the buildings in their district while maintaining grid reliability. The winners are: