DTE Energy and the University of Michigan (U-M) have broadened the scope of last year's inaugural Clean Energy Prize competition by changing the rules to encourage participation from more Michigan colleges and universities.
Any team with student representation from a Michigan college or university is eligible. The teams still are being challenged to develop the best business plan for bringing a new clean energy technology to market. The teams with winning ideas will share $100,000 in prize money, to be awarded in spring 2010.
‘Our goal for the Clean Energy Prize is to drive promising ideas and technologies from the research lab to commercialization,’ says Knut Simonsen, president, DTE Energy Ventures.
The U-M Ross School of Business' Ross Energy Club, along with the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute and the Michigan Initiative for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, are organizing the competition.
The competition requires that teams focus on business ideas that support renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart grid technologies, environmental control technologies, plug-in electric vehicles or energy storage.
The business plan entries will be judged by independent panels that will include leaders from the venture capital, business, industry and academic communities. The prize money rewards the winning teams with resources that can help them further develop ideas and ultimately start new businesses that can contribute to Michigan's role in providing renewable energy.
For more information, visit mpowered.studentorgs.umich.edu
SOURCE: DTE Energy
