Geothermal Design Challenge sees tremendous number of submissions

Screenshot of Design Challenge website (CAES)

Alexander Richter 4 Mar 2016

The Geothermal Design Challenge, by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office, the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) and the Idah National Lab (INL) has reported on the number of submissions it has received by the competition deadline March 1, 2016.

Clearly there has been a large interest and competition is heating up!

As of the March 1, 2016 closing date, the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) received an unprecedented 109 infographic submissions in this year’s Geothermal Design Challenge 2016.  The submitting teams come from over 30 states across the U.S., and represent an impressive range of schools, ages, and disciplines: high schools to graduate schools and design programs to engineering departments, under myriad interdisciplinary student-driven efforts and establishment-crafted curricula.

With lessons learned from the original competition in 2014, this impressive level of interest is the result of GTO’s close partnership with the Center for Advanced Energy Studies and the Idaho National Lab in 2016.  Through this collaboration, GTO and INL challenged high school and university students to explore the future of geothermal energy and literally draw ‘the heat beneath your feet’.  With the initial submissions in, technical and design judges will select the most promising infographics to proceed into Round 2, with a chance to win the cash grand prize at the end of the summer!

Future important dates include:

• March 16, 2016 – Round 2 selections will be finalized and teams will be notified.
• May 15, 2016 – Round 2 teams will submit finalized infographic.
• July 1-14, 2016 – Round 2 teams will deploy their social media campaign.
• August 1, 2016 – Winners will be notified.

Source: DOE, GTO