The Little Box Challenge was an engineering competition run by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

's Power Electronics Society. The original challenge was posted on July 22, 2014 with modifications on December 16, 2014 and March 23, 2015. Testing was in October 2015 at the

National Renewable Energy Laboratory The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US specializes in the research and development of renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy systems integration, and sustainable transportation. NREL is a federally funded research and ...

. From the 18 finalists, CE+T Power's team called ''Red Electrical Devils'' won the $1 million prize, which was awarded to them in March 2016. The challenge was to build a

power inverter A power inverter, inverter or invertor is a power electronic device or circuitry that changes direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The resulting AC frequency obtained depends on the particular device employed. Inverters do the oppo ...

that was about one tenth the size of the state-of-the-art at the time. It had to have an efficiency greater than 95 percent and handle loads of 2 kW. It also had to fit in a metal enclosure of no more than 40 cubic inches (the eponymous "little box") and withstand 100 hours of testing. The goals of the competition were lower cost solar

photovoltaic Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially ...

power, more efficient

uninterruptible power supplies An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power syste ...

, affordable

microgrids Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG), or district/decentralized energy, is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system-connected devices referred to ...

, and the ability to use an electric vehicle's battery as backup power during a

power outage A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electrici ...

. Google also hoped a smaller inverter could make its data centers run more efficiently. More than 100 international teams from university researchers and students to large companies and garage tinkerers entered the Google Little Box Challenge competition. Eighteen finalists were chosen in October 2015. These 18 teams entered the Challenge's final stretch by submitting their competition prototypes, which underwent Google's stringent test regimen. The results of this worldwide competition were announced at the ARPA-E 2016, March conference. Of the 18 finalists, only 3 teams passed every one of Google's test requirements, those being the top three finishers.

First Place Finisher - The Red Electrical Devils

(CE+T Power, Belgium)

Olivier Bomboir, Paul Bleus, Fabrice Frebel, Thierry Joannès, François Milstein, Pierre Stassain, Christophe Geuzaine, Carl Emmerechts, Philippe Laurent

Second Place Finisher - Schneider Electric Team

(France)

Miao-xin Wang, Rajesh Ghosh, Srikanth Mudiyula, Radoslava Mitova, David Reilly, Milind Dighrasker, Sajeesh Sulaiman, Alain Dentella, Damir Klikic, Chandrashekar Devalapuraramegowda, Michael Hartmann, Vijaykumar Atadkar

Third Place Finisher - Future Energy Electronics Center

(Virginia Tech, USA)

Jih-Sheng Lai, Lanhua Zhang, Xiaonan Zhao, Rachael Born, Chung-Yi Lin, Ming-Chang Chou, Shu-Shuo Chang, Kye Yak See

Remaining finalists

!verter

(Germany/Switzerland/Slovenia)

Eckart Hoene, Johann W. Kolar, Dominik Bortis, Yanick Lobsiger, Dominik Neumayr, Oliver Knecht, Florian Krismer, Stefan Hoffmann, Adam Kuczmik, Oleg Zeiter, Franc Zajc

Adiabatic Logic

(UK)

Geoff Harvey, Alan Willybridge, Steve Love

AHED

(Germany)

Alexander Huenten

AMR

(Argentina)

Agustin Reibel

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...
Active Magnetics

(UK)

John Wood, Ed Shelton, Tim Regan, Ellen Wood, Kyle Rogers, Dr Kevin Rathbone, Sam Harrup

Energylayer

(Ukraine)

Evgeny Sboychakov, Ruslan Kotelnikov

Fraunhofer IISB

(Germany)

Bernd Eckardt, Stefan Endres, Maximilian Hofmann, Stefan Matlok, Thomas Menrath, Martin März, Stefan Zeltner

Helios

(USA)

Jack Zhu, Mari Ma

LBC1

(Slovakia)

Martin Pietka, Andrej Teren, Marian Vranka, Lubos Drozd, Peter Sedlacko

OKE-Services

(Netherlands)

Henk Oldenkamp

Rompower

(USA/Romania)

Ionel Jitaru, Nicolae Daniel Bolohan, Antonio Marco Davila

The
University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

(USA)

Daniel Costinett, Leon Tolbert, Fred Wang, Chongwen Zhao, Bradford Trento, Ling Jiang, Rick Langley, John Jansen, Reid Kress, Anthony Brun

Tommasi - Bailly 3NERGY

(France)

Mike Tommasi, Alain Bailly

UIUC The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...
Pilawa Group

(USA)

Robert Pilawa, Shibin Qin, Christopher Barth, Yutian Lei, Wen-Chuen Liu, Andrew Stillwell, Intae Moon, Derek Chou, Thomas Foulkes

Venderbosch

(Netherlands)

Herbert Venderbosch, Gerard Bruggink

References

{{Reflist, 1, refs= {{Cite web , title = Winning Google's Little Box Challenge Will Take a 'Holistic Approach' , first = Katherine , last = Tweed , work = IEEE Spectrum , date = 2014-07-30 , accessdate = 2016-03-26 , url = https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/google-little-box-inverter-challenge , quote = {{Cite magazine , title = What It Will Take to Win Google's Million-Dollar Electric Power Prize , last = Stockton , first = Nick , magazine = WIRED , date = 2014-08-11 , accessdate = 2016-03-26 , url = https://www.wired.com/2014/08/google-power-inverter-challenge/ , quote = Detailed Inverter Specifications, Testing Procedure, and Technical Approach and Testing Application Requirements for the Little Box Challenge
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160310120416/https://www.littleboxchallenge.com/pdf/LBC-InverterRequirements.pdf , date=2016-03-10 {{Cite web , title = The IEEE Power Electronics Society and Google Announce Winner of Little Box Challenge , last = Russell , first = Kristen , work = IEEE Society Sentinel, Vol. 21, No. 05 , date = 2016-03-09 , accessdate = 2016-03-26 , url = http://newsletters.ieee.org/volunteers/sentinel/9-march-2016-2016-03-09-vol-21-no-05.html , quote = the grand prize winner of the $1 Million Little Box Challenge is CE+T Power's Red Electrical Devils

External links

Official web site of the competition

Official web site of the winning team
Electric power conversion Engineering competitions Student competitions

First Place Finisher - The Red Electrical Devils

(CE+T Power, Belgium)

Second Place Finisher - Schneider Electric Team

(France)

Third Place Finisher - Future Energy Electronics Center

(Virginia Tech, USA)

Remaining finalists

!verter

(Germany/Switzerland/Slovenia)

Adiabatic Logic

(UK)

AHED

(Germany)

AMR

(Argentina)

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ... Active Magnetics

(UK)

Energylayer

(Ukraine)

Fraunhofer IISB

(Germany)

Helios

(USA)

LBC1

(Slovakia)

OKE-Services

(Netherlands)

Rompower

(USA/Romania)

The University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

(USA)

Tommasi - Bailly 3NERGY

(France)

UIUC The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ... Pilawa Group

(USA)

Venderbosch

(Netherlands)

See also

References

External links

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...
Active Magnetics

The
University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

UIUC The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...
Pilawa Group