University teams square off for national clean energy finals

Northwestern University's team also won Rice competition.

The best and brightest minds at U.S. colleges squared off recently, gathering their collective intelligence, imagination and ideas in a competition to come up with the most formidable and commercially promising clean energy innovations.

The preliminary results have just been unveiled. Regional winners of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition have been named. Northwestern University, University of Utah, University of Central Florida, MIT, Stanford University and Columbia University will go on to compete in the first national competition in Washington, D.C. in June.

"The winning teams have developed effective strategies for bringing innovative technologies into the market that will help keep America competitive in the global race for clean energy technologies," Energy Secretary Steven Chu says in a statement.

Each regional winner receives $100,000 in prizes.