The Department of Energy announced its inaugural Grid Optimization (GO) Competition consisting of a series of challenges to develop software that will improve the reliability, resilience and security of the nation’s power grid. In an Oct. 31 press release, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry recognized that the grid has become more diverse, with the rapid development of new energy sources like battery storage, wind and solar power, and distributed energy resources creating challenges for grid operators. The first stage of the competition is offering up to $4 million in prizes to develop new algorithms to make routing power across the grid faster and more efficient.