Deadline: 28 May 2020
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) has launched a new prize—the first AMO prize to be announced as part of DOE’s Water Security Grand Challenge, whose goal is to advance transformational technology and innovation to meet the global need for safe, secure, and affordable water.
A two-phase competition, the Water Resource Recovery prize offers up to $1 million in cash prizes and is designed to develop innovative, cutting-edge water treatment technology system configurations and business plans that will help lower the ultimate cost of treatment by extracting additional value from wastewater.
The Water Resource Recovery Prize is part of the Water Security Grand Challenge, which seeks to advance transformational technology and innovation to meet the global need for safe, secure and affordable water. This multiphase competition challenges interdisciplinary teams to innovate cost effective, transformational water treatment technology system configurations and business plans that:
- Accelerate the recovery of valuable resources
- Lower the ultimate cost of small- to medium-sized water resource recovery facilities.
Through this prize competition, DOE is seeking novel, systems-based solutions from multidisciplinary teams to implement resource recovery at small- to medium-sized water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs).
Prize Goals
The purpose of this prize is to encourage teams of wastewater treatment plants, engineering and design firms, technology developers, resource customers, and others to develop holistic resource recovery plans for their respective wastewater treatment systems.
The proposed solutions should represent innovations that could move the sector of small- and medium-sized WRRFs beyond their current technological status while addressing these challenges:
- Financial stress on municipal budgets. WRRFs purchase about $2 billion of electricity each year and face more than $200 billion in future capital investment needs to meet water quality objectives.
- Cost of disposal of residual biosolids. By turning recovery resources into marketable products, WRRFs can create new revenue streams for upgrading water treatment infrastructure, reducing nutrient pollution, and providing sources of alternative water supplies.
- Increasing value of recoverable resources to offset the cost of recovery. Recoverable resources include energy that can be used on-site or sold, nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen that can be used as fertilizer, and clean water that can be reused for agricultural, industrial, and drinking water purposes.
- Advancing system-level energy efficiency. Recovering energy from wastewater reduces the amount of grid electricity required to operate the wastewater treatment plant. Recovered water can also offer a substitute for water sources with a higher level of embedded energy for industrial, agricultural, and municipal use. Moreover, recovered nutrients can be less energy-intensive substitutes for fertilizer on agricultural land.
Prize Information
This prize will distribute a total of up to $1 million of combined cash prizes. As many as 10 winners selected in Phase 1 will receive up to $50,000, while no more than two winners selected in Phase 2 will receive $250,000 in cash prizes.
Prize Stages
The prize consists of two phases. Phase 1 challenges teams to submit two high-level facility engineering schematics, a business case demonstrating improvement relative to the existing baseline conditions, and a technical description validating the potential for cost-effectiveness and viability of the resource recovery plan. In Phase 2, selected teams from Phase 1 will be expected to provide a more detailed plan for financing and construction, supported by quantitative analysis and/or modeling.
Important Dates
- Phase 1 submissions close: May 28, 2020 (at 5pm ET)
- Phase 1 notification: June 28, 2020
- Phase 2 submissions open: August 12, 2020
- Phase 2 submissions close: August 12, 2021
- Phase 2 notification: September 9, 2021
Eligibility Criteria
- The prize competition is open only to:
- citizens or permanent residents of the United States; and
- private or non-federal public entities, such as townships, tribes, corporations, or other organizations that are incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States.
- Individuals can compete alone or as a member of a group.
- A representative of a private entity can register the entity to compete. If an entity is legally formed under the laws of a State or the laws of the United States, individuals working under that entity may participate regardless of immigration status.
- DOE employees, employees of sponsoring organizations, members of their immediate families (spouses, children, siblings, and parents), and any persons living in the same household as such persons (even if unrelated) are not eligible to participate in this prize. Federal entities and federal employees, acting within the scope of their employment, are also not eligible to participate in any portion of this prize. DOE National Laboratory employees cannot participate in any stage of the prize.
- Employees of a DOE national laboratory are not allowed to compete in any prize contest in this program.
For more information, visit https://americanmadechallenges.org/waterresourcerecovery/