The Solar District Cup challenges multidisciplinary student teams to design and model optimized distributed energy systems for a campus or urban district. These systems integrate solar, storage, and other technologies across mixed-use districts, which are groups of buildings served by a common electrical distribution feeder. The competition engages students in the engineering, urban planning, finance, and related disciplines to reimagine how energy is generated, managed, and used in a district.

The goal is to design, model, and present the most innovative and cost-effective system possible. Teams compete in one of multiple divisions, each of which is structured around a specific district. A winner is selected for each division based on the quality of their solar energy system design. The strongest designs provide the highest offset of annual energy and greatest financial savings, which is determined by a techno-economic analysis that the students conduct and judges evaluate.

Students present their solutions to judges at a live event, where the winners are selected and announced.   

The U.S. Department of Energy announced the Solar District Cup on May 30, 2019. The competition is administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Approach

The Solar District Cup is designed to inspire students to consider new career opportunities, learn industry-relevant skills, engage with the professional marketplace, and prepare to become leaders in  distributed solar energy. As competitors, students:

• Build experience with innovative distributed energy design
• Develop innovative solutions to real-world, district-scale challenges
• Engage with industry professionals to forge relationships and connections that aid participating students’ transition to the distributed energy workforce upon graduation
• Compete to earn national recognition upon winning a Solar District Cup and/or being selected as an industry choice winner or pitch champion.

The Solar District Cup encourages collaboration between academia and industry. The program seeks to establish public-private partnership and demonstrate corporate and nonprofit industry co-sponsorship.

Sponsors

The Solar District Cup is proud to have the following partners supporting the program and the participating teams:

• Aurora Solar Inc. – Aurora Solar has created a one-stop, cloud-based solution to streamline the entire solar design and sales process. The company provides complimentary accounts with access to their solar software to all competing teams for the duration of the competition, as well as customized training and hosting “office hours” sessions.
• Energy Toolbase Software Inc. – This software platform provides a cohesive suite of project modeling, storage control, and asset monitoring products that enable solar and storage developers to deploy projects more efficiently. It provides all competing teams free accounts and access to its software, offers customized training, and staffs “office hour” sessions throughout the competition.
• HeatSpring, LLC – HeatSpring has developed a platform enabling knowledge leaders to better reach knowledge seekers. Industry experts lead online courses for professionals within solar, green building, and other clean energy industries. HeatSpring is providing a training platform and solar industry training content for use by hundreds of competing students as well as hosting “office hours” sessions with solar business experts Keith Cronin and Chris Lord.
• RE+ (formerly Solar Power Events) – RE+, owned by the Solar Energy Industry Association and Smart Electric Power Alliance, is the event group behind North America’s largest solar and storage events. The organization is providing space, promotion, and amenities to the Solar District Cup.

Thank you to our sponsors for helping make the Solar District Cup a success. 

The recognition of sponsor organizations does not constitute or imply any endorsement, sponsorship, or recommendation of their messages, missions, activities, products, or programs. The U.S. Department of Energy does not monitor, control, or directly fund the activities of the identified organizations.

Timeline

• The Solar District Cup Class of 2020 opened on May 30, 2019. Participating schools were announced on September 19, 2019, and the finalists were announced on December 12, 2019. The finalists presented their projects to judges and industry partners during a live video-conference event on April 26, 2020, and winners were announced on April 27, 2020.
• The Solar District Cup Class of 2021 opened on March 31, 2020. Participating schools were announced October 6, 2020 and finalists were announced on December 17, 2020. The winners were announced on April 26, 2021.
• The Solar District Cup Class of 2021-2022 opened on May 12, 2021. Participating schools were announced on September 29, 2021 and finalists were announced on December 17, 2021. The winners were announced on April 25, 2022. 

Learn More

• Read the official rules.
• Follow competition progress on HeroX.
• Read about the Class of 2020, Class of 2021, and Class of 2021-2022.
• Subscribe to competition emails.
• Send questions about the Solar District Cup to solardistrictcup@nrel.gov.

This work is funded as part of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office FY2019-21 Lab Call through a project with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.