Energy Toolbase is excited to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for the 2022-2023Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy state that the Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition “empowers students to embrace the challenge and bring their most innovative solutions to real-world applications. The collegiate competition challenges multidisciplinary student teams to design and model distributed energy systems that integrate solar photovoltaics and battery energy storage systems across mixed-use districts. The goal is to maximize both electric energy offset and financial savings for their districts. 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.”
In this year’s 2022-2023 competition, Energy Toolbase is providing their industry-leading software modeling platform, ETB Developer, for competitors to use in performing utility rate and solar + storage financial analysis. All Solar District Cup teams will receive a complimentary account to model, optimize, and propose their projects based on their specific project use case. The ETB Developer platform is widely considered the gold standard modeling tool within the commercial & industrial (C&I) segment to perform accurate, objective, and transparent avoided cost and financial analysis. ETB Developer specializes in utility rate and avoided cost analysis of solar + storage projects. The Energy Toolbase team will also provide training and office hour sessions for competitors to leverage the tool’s full capabilities.
This year’s competition features 57 student-led teams from 52 collegiate institutions, including returning SDC champion, Drexel University, and returning runner-up, Carnegie Mellon University. This year’s cup kicked off in October of 2022 and will run through April of 2023. Other Cup sponsors that are providing resources and tools includeRE+ (formerly Solar Power Events) and Aurora Solar.
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