DTE Energy, University of Michigan Offer Annual Competition for Clean-Energy Innovations

Energy Resource, May 15, 2008

ENERGY RESOURCE-15 May 2008-DTE Energy, University of Michigan Offer Annual Competition for Clean-Energy Innovations(C)2008 JeraOne - http://www.jeraone.com

DTE Energy has joined with the University of Michigan to conduct an annual entrepreneurship competition that challenges teams from Michigan colleges and universities to develop the best plan for bringing new clean-energy technologies to market.

DTE Energy Chairman and CEO Anthony F. Earley Jr. announced the creation of the DTE Clean Energy Prize today at the company's annual meeting.

"Our goal is to drive promising clean energy ideas and technologies from the research lab to commercialization," Earley said. "To do that, we are making a five-year, $450,000 commitment to fund the DTE Clean Energy Prize, a new competition open to the best and brightest students and faculty at Michigan's colleges and universities."

The prize pool for the 2009 competition will be $100,000, which will be divided among the winning teams. For subsequent years, it is expected that the prize pool will be $200,000.

The prize competition will be hosted by the University of Michigan, but will be open to students and faculty from all Michigan colleges and universities. For the first year, each team must have at least one University of Michigan student or faculty member. Details of the competition still are being finalized, but the initial competition will be held this fall with prize to be awarded next spring.

As application forms, deadlines and other details are finalized, that information will be posted on the Clean Energy Prize pages on the DTE web site, dteenergy.com.

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