American-Made Challenges (SETO)

American-Made Heliostat Prize

Funds U.S. innovators developing and demonstrating heliostat components through a DOE prize competition under the American-Made Challenges program.

The American-Made Heliostat Prize is a prize competition administered by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), specifically its Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). It sits under the American-Made Challenges program, DOE's initiative to accelerate domestic manufacturing and energy technology development by incentivizing U.S. entrepreneurs and innovators through structured prize competitions.

The total competition prize pool is $3 million, announced in June 2023. The prize is designed to spur innovation in heliostat technology — the mirrors that track the sun and focus sunlight onto a central receiver in concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) systems. No specific per-applicant award cap or minimum is stated in the official source; the $3 million represents the aggregate prize budget across all competition phases and winners. No cost-share or match funding requirement is stated for prize competitions of this type.

Eligibility is open to a broad range of applicants including for-profit companies, nonprofit organizations, universities, and individuals based in the United States. The American-Made Challenges program is designed specifically to incentivize U.S. entrepreneurs, so participants are expected to have U.S. operations. Specific eligibility rules (minimum team size, revenue caps, citizenship requirements) are not detailed in the available official source.

The prize structure follows a multi-phase competition format typical of American-Made Challenges prizes, where competitors advance through design, development, and demonstration stages. Specific deadlines and application steps for current or future phases are not published in the available source. Interested participants should monitor the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office prize page and the HeroX or American-Made Network platform for phase announcements.

Because the prize was announced in June 2023 and is listed as active in the DOE solar prizes catalog, it may be between competition phases. No current open deadline has been confirmed from the available source, and applicants should check the official DOE page before applying.