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Welcome to the GE Ecomagination Challenge, a $200 million innovation experiment where businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and students share their best ideas on how to build the next-generation power grid – and just might get funded.

We’ve teamed up with some of the best-known venture capital firms, including Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, KPCB and Rockport Capital, to help back the most promising ideas.

Will you join us? Please enter the challenge, submit your ideas, vote for the most promising teams and help us change the way the world uses energy in powerful new ways. Who knows? One of the ideas selected could be yours.

There are three categories for submission:

Challenge 1: Create – Renewable Energy

Renewable energy holds extraordinary potential for helping us create the energy to meet our growing needs. But many forms of renewable energy are highly variable in their output. This is where a more intelligent grid comes in, integrating and managing renewable energy sources.

At GE, we’re developing technologies that protect the quality of power, compensating for voltage fluctuations and managing output intermittency. We want to provide utilities with better information about energy production, transmission, consumption and energy system health to help them protect equipment and ensure safe, reliable power.

Making the best use of the energy created by renewable resources is critical to a reliable supply of affordable energy. What kinds of technologies or processes do you think will maximize the penetration of renewables into the grid?

Challenge 2: Connect – Grid Efficiency

The U.S. should have the most efficient grid in the world. But we don’t. Our grid wastes energy at every point during every day. The solution is to connect advanced power generation to a more intelligent and more efficient grid — that then connects with consumers.

GE is looking at different grid technologies that help lower delivery losses and those that anticipate and monitor demand. Reducing losses frees up grid capacity, reduces the need for infrastructure capital expenditure, and protects consumers from steep rate increases. Reducing voltage eliminates the over-delivery of energy, so customers are not paying for unused energy.

In terms of technology, processes and policy, what do you think are the best means to help us realize greater gains in grid efficiency and outage management?

Challenge 3: Use – EcoHomes/EcoBuildings