Want to build a prototype for a solar startup in less than 24 hours and win $10,000 in cash prizes? Powerhouse is hosting the fifth annual SunCode Solar Hackathon on Friday, April 7th through Saturday April 8th at the Citizen Engagement Lab in downtown Oakland. SunCode is your opportunity to build tools that can help power the planet with sunshine. Previous SunCodes have produced startups like Powerhive and UtilityAPI. You don't have to know anything about solar to participate. 

Schedule  

Friday Evening April 7 

• 6:00-7:00p - Happy Hour and Dinner 
• 7:00-8:30p - Form Teams
• 9:00p - Doors Close 

Saturday April 8 

• 8:00a - Doors Open and Breakfast 
• 8:00a-12:00p - Hacking 
• 12:00-1:00p - Lunch 
• 1:00-6:00p - Hacking - To pitch you must upload to DevPost by 6pm - (Takes 15+ mins) 
• 6:00-6:30p - Dinner 
• 6:30-8:45p - Pitches to Judges - 3 mins per team and 2 mins Q+A
• 8:45-9:15p - Happy Hour (Judges Deliberate)
• 9:15-9:30p - Winners Announced

Challenges

DSM Same Sun, More Power™ Challenge I: Build an application that visualizes the financial benefits (e.g. via increased power output and saved maintenance costs) of a materials solution (e.g. anti-reflective coating with anti-soiling properties) that is applied to a PV installation that is already up and running, across various climate conditions.

DSM Same Sun, More Power™ Challenge II: Build an application tailored to PV site developers that enables selection of specific modules and material sets that will optimize PV plant performance depending on the site conditions (e.g. climate and irradiance). Quantify the financial benefits of enhancing the module selection capability.

Sunrun Challenge I: Reimagine the Solar Homeowner Experience. What are customers interested in knowing about? How do they want to interact with the system? How do we maximize value for both the customer and the solar company? At what point in the process do they want a portal? Create a demonstration portal.  

Sunrun Challenge II: Home Energy Management - Control at least two devices from different manufacturers. Demonstrate the ability to orchestrate the devices for maximum benefit based on at least two different scenarios (PG&E Smart Day, normal day). Devices will be provided.  

Powerhouse Challenge: Batteries are being installed at a rapid rate as part of solar systems. Create an algorithm or machine learning routine that will maximize customer benefit in a variable TOU rate situation while also maximizing battery lifespan.  

$10,000 in prizes

1. Purchase a ticket 

2. Register on DevPost 

3. Come ready to hack on Friday April 7 at 6:00pm at The Citizen Engagement Lab in Oakland 

4. Use the datasets and APIs below:

Datasets (From 2016 - We're updating as new sets arrive) 

Amazon:

Landsat Aerial Data/Maps

Enphase Enlighten Systems API:

Creating an account

Documentation

Genability API:

Documentation site 

Trial sign up

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Dept of Energy) APIs:

20+ Solar Datasets from NREL and DoE

NREL solar tools and API overview  

Open PV API - The real-time status of the solar photovoltaic market in the U.S.

NREL developer network:  - The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's developer network helps developers access and use energy data via Web services, including renewable energy and alternative fuel data.

Utility Rate Database: Information and downloads, API 

Incentives and Policies data, Information, API  

NREL SAM SDK: The SAM Simulation Core (SSC) software development kit (SDK) is a collection of developer tools for creating renewable energy system models

City of Oakland Buildings Energy Billing History (via UtilityAPI w/ access token "opendatatoken")

API Documentation

UtilityAPI would like provide a data to those teams who would like to integrate utility data into their hackathon projects. Just sign up for an account at utilityapi.com and come see Daniel (red polo) if you have any questions! Second, we have an open dataset consisting of the City of Oakland's municipal buildings. You can access a list of available meters HERE

PVComplete Layout Widget and Equipment Database: This widget and accompanying API makes it easy to do a graphical solar array layout on top of google maps. The API also include access to our database of solar modules and solar inverters. Please see our landing page for details on how to deploy an instance of the widget and access our equipment database.

Tendril Dataset: Click here

Helios APIs:

Helios: A real-time intelligence analytics platform that identifies weather events and visibility conditions from any imagery source connected to the platform. This could help solar operators or the energy grid respond to changes in the weather that affect production in real-time.

GOES-R: NOAA’s newest weather satellite that Helios designed, built and operates. It provides all of these critical weather and solar radiance products for the whole western hemisphere every 10 minutes. We are closest to the data in the world and want to empower entrepreneurs to connect this data into their models via API and cloud data access

Terms and Conditions while using Powerhouse Hackathon datasets:

Data provided during the Powerhouse SunCode Solar Hackathon event is for the participants to use during the event only. If you need to reorganize, modify, or delete the data, you may do so during the event.

However, after the hackathon you must either delete the copies of data you receive or contact the data provider / owner to arrange a long-term licensing agreement.

If a sponsor provided the data set, feel free to reach out to a mentor to get connected with that sponsor. They’ll help answer your questions to the best of their ability. 

Winning teams are subject to a code review to ensure the code was built during the Powerhouse SunCode Solar Hackathon.

• Mission
  How well does the solution address the goals defined for this challenge? (20%)
• Quality
  How creative, innovative, interesting, and unique is the solution in meeting contest requirements? (20%)
• Implementation
  How well is the idea executed by the team and how well is the solution integrated with potential customers or systems? (20%)
• User Experience
  How successful is the design, user functionality, graphics, typography, ease of use and visual aesthetic? (20%)
• Potential Impact
  To what extent will the submission impact the clean energy industry? How scaleable is the submission? (20%)