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

The Solar District Cup Class of 2022-2023 competes from August 2022 to April 2023. Student teams design and model optimized distributed energy systems for their assigned district use case.

On October 11, 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the 57 teams from 52 schools that will spend a full academic year developing design solutions to meet the renewable energy goals of campuses or other districts.

On January 31, 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the 45 teams from 39 schools that advanced to the final stage of the competition. Read the announcement.

New Ways to Participate in the Class of 2022-2023

New to the Class of 2022-2023 are a few updates to the way in which students can participate. This year, the competition accepted collegiate team registration on a rolling basis, which means students could begin work and access learning resources on a timeline that best aligned with their academic calendar. Student teams will receive their assigned district use case and access to modeling tools on a rolling basis starting August 23, 2022. Additionally, the Solar District Cup Class of 2022-2023 will allow for one-semester or two-quarter participation in the winter/spring.

Student teams have two options for their district use cases: (1) assignment to a district use case defined by competition organizers, as has been done in all previous iterations of the Solar District Cup, or (2) a bring-your-own-district division in which students can self-select their district use case, utilizing the district’s available data on their own, with missing data synthesis support by competition organizers. All student teams choosing to bring their own district will compete in a division against other teams bringing their own districts.

Class of 2023 Finalist Schools

Alfred State College of Technology  

Alfred University  

Appalachian State University

Arizona State University 

Boise State University 

Carnegie Mellon University 

Clark Atlanta University  

Drexel University  

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University  

Georgia Institute of Technology  

Hofstra University 

Illinois State University  

Indian Hills Community College 

Iowa State University of Science and Technology  

Kankakee Community College 

Kansas State University 

Macalester College 

Manhattan College  

Miami University  

Monterey Peninsula College  

North Carolina State University  

Northeastern University  

Penn State Hazleton  

San Antonio College  

Texas A&M University  

Texas Tech University  

The George Washington University  

The State University of New York Morrisville 

The University of Arizona  

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York  

University of Colorado Boulder 

University of California, Riverside  

University of Houston  

University of Michigan  

University of Minnesota Duluth  

University of Minnesota Twin Cities  

University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus

West Texas A&M University  

Timeline

Timeline is subject to change.

• June 29, 2022 – Launch of 2022-2023 competition
• June 29, 2022 – Competition registration opened
• August 25, 2022 – Informational webinar
• August 26, 2022 – Rules published
• October 6, 2022 – Fall registration closes for full academic year participation. 
• October 11, 2022 – Participating teams announced
• November 17, 2022 – Deadline for receipt of Progress Deliverable Package from participating teams
• December 15, 2022 – Progress Deliverable Package feedback provided
• January 13, 2023 – Informational Webinar for winter/spring participation
• January 26, 2023 – Registration closes for winter/spring participation
• January 31, 2023 – Finalist teams announced
• April 20, 2023 – Deadline for receipt of Final Deliverable Package from finalist teams
• April 30 – May 1, 2023 – Competing teams present their projects to judges and peers at the Final Competition Event
• May 1, 2023 – Winners announced

Learn More

• Visit Solar District Cup page on HeroX to follow the competition.
• Learn about previous competition cohorts.
• 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.