Photo Credit: challenge.ecomagination.com
For universities, startups and garage tinkerers who missed out on the first round of funding through General Electric’s Ecomagination Challenge, there is a new opportunity to win big.
GE launched the second phase of the contest, “Powering Your Home,” which is geared to solicit the best ideas in energy efficiency and integrating renewables in the residential sector. A panel of GE executives, leading academics, and technologists will judge the competition, which is accepting entries until March 1.
The first round, “Powering the Grid,” included a section for ideas on how people use power, and any previous participant who wants to resubmit an idea if it fits this residential category can do so. The panel will select five winners “whose ideas represent pioneering entrepreneurship and innovation” that will each receive $100,000. In addition to the five Innovation Award winners, more than $100 million in venture capital investment could be made available to other winners.
Unlike the initial contest, there is no community challenge. Throwing out the popular vote is a smart move. The website devolved into a popularity contest of “vote for me, and I’ll vote for you” where many of the commercially viable ideas were buried beneath the Jetson-inspired grand notions that seemed devoid of cost analysis.
“Powering the Grid” had 12 winners that would see approximately $55 million and support from GE’s teams. It is unclear exactly how many winners will be chosen for “Powering Your Home.” It's a ripe area for investment, as some of the initial 12 winners, including OPOWER, ClimateWell and Soladigm, all have technology that is tailored to, or could be applied to, residential markets.
If the first round offers any insights, while there will be thousands of ideas from all over the world, the winners will be advances that are already close to, or at, market and ready to scale up. However, when the first winners were announced, GE said that it was going to try to build a system so that some of the better ideas that didn’t quite make it to the winners’ podium could still get channeled to the right VC firms or other resources.
The Challenge was launched in collaboration with venture capital firms Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer, and RockPort Capital, as well as Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired.