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2026 Schneider Go Green Challenge
An exciting global challenge open to teams of students and young entrepreneurs from all backgrounds! Your mission? Identify a specific energy access, efficiency, or reliability challenge faced by a real community, and design a clean energy solution that directly addresses it. Your solution must be commercially viable, environmentally friendly, and built to last.
APPLY NOW
APPLY NOW
Check Out Schneider Go Green 2026 Promotional Video!
Theme
This year's challenge is focused on the theme:
Identify a specific energy access, efficiency, or reliability challenge faced by a real community, and design a clean energy solution that directly addresses it. Your solution must be commercially viable, environmentally friendly, and built to last.
Your Project Proposals should be:
- Energy Tech for Local Impact
Identify a specific energy access, efficiency, or reliability challenge faced by a real community, and design a clean energy solution that directly addresses it. Your solution must be commercially viable, environmentally friendly, and built to last.
Your Project Proposals should be:
- Affordable — Making clean energy accessible to all, including low-income communities, by prioritizing cost-effective solutions.
- Sustainable — Built to last — recyclable, repairable, and well-documented to support long-term use, maintenance, and continuous learning.
- Innovative — Introducing new and creative solutions to energy challenges.
- Local — Designed with locally available components, ensuring that the system can be installed, operated, and maintained by professionals trained within the country.
Challenge Prizes!
- The top three winning teams will share a total prize pool of €10,000. (1st Place: €6,000 | 2nd Place: €2,500 | 3rd Place: €1,500).
- Boost your personal brand and grow your professional network.
- Mentoring sessions from Schneider Electric Experts.
Who Can Participate?
- Currently enrolled students aged 18 to 30.
- Participants must have proficiency in English as the official language for the competition.
- Must participate in teams of 2 to 4 members. We encourage each team to be gender balanced.
- All team members must study in the same country, but they may attend different educational institutions, and be enrolled in different courses, and various academic years.
Challenge Timeline
- June 1: Launch & Registration: — Registrations open. Once your team is formed, you may immediately begin developing your project proposal. Further guidance on team formation and submission requirements will be shared via follow-up email.
- August 28: Registrations Close & Submission Deadline — All registered teams must submit their final renewable energy project proposal. No late applications will be accepted.
- September 1–29: Internal Proposal Review — Judges review all submissions and select the top 10 teams.
- October 1–29: Project Development & Submission — Top 10 teams develop a comprehensive business case. Each team is paired with a Schneider Electric mentor to support them during this phase.
- November 2–13: Internal Project Review — Judges review submitted business cases and select the top 3 teams to advance to the global virtual finals.
- November 16: Top Teams Announced — The three finalist teams are officially announced and advance to represent their ideas on the global stage.
- December 7: Global Final — Top 3 teams pitch their solution to a virtual panel of judges, who will identify a global winner!
Why Apply?
Hear from our previous Go Green participants!