New Innovations Bolster American Workforce and Advance Building Envelope Retrofits

EERE announced 10 winners for the first phase of the E-ROBOT Prize.

Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy

Aug 19, 2021

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Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced 10 winners for the first phase of the Envelope Retrofit Opportunities for Building Optimization Technologies (E-ROBOT) Prize, a $5 million competition focused on fast-tracking advanced robotics solutions for building envelope retrofits. Each finalist will win a $200,000 prize and move on to Phase 2, where they will build a prototype of their solution and compete for part of the $2 million prize pool. Phase 2 teams will pitch their innovation and demonstrate their prototype at the conclusion of the competition.

Buildings account for 35% of CO2 emissions in the United States. The American-Made E-ROBOT Prize incentivizes the development of robotic innovations that can help the American workforce improve the efficiency of our buildings through faster, safer, and more accessible building-envelope retrofits.

“There are more than 125 million existing residential and commercial buildings across the country,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Secretary for EERE. “Current retrofit techniques are often disruptive to homeowners or occupants and pose potential health and safety hazards to workers. By pairing robotic experts with building scientists, the E-ROBOT Prize will help us discover holistic solutions that allow workers to safely reach more homes and businesses with minimal disruption, or even perform activities that were previously impossible, while helping create new jobs and generate energy savings opportunities.”

Combining advanced retrofit capabilities with collaborative robotics will improve the safety and productivity of the American buildings workforce, yielding new employment opportunities for workers in construction, skilled trades, and engineering professions.

From attics to crawl spaces and wall cavities to exterior facades, E-ROBOT Prize Phase 1 winners are transforming the existing building space with a sweeping portfolio of innovations that demonstrate the promise of advanced robotics for building envelope retrofits. Read a full description of each Phase 1 winner here.