Posted by Janelle Noble

Fresh off the highly successful first phase of the Ecomagination Challenge – updating the Power Grid— GE has launched phase two of the challenge, the search for new ways to Power Your Home. GE decided to launch the second challenge, which opens today, January 18 and closes March 1, because phase one was such a success, according to GE CMO Beth Comstock. In just three months time, the Ecomagination Challenge collected over 4,000 ideas from over 70,000 global users, making it perhaps the largest crowdsourcing competition of all time.

Comstock also said that phase two, which like phase one will be powered by Brightidea, will be for eco-friendly home appliances because the demand is so high and because such a large number of applicable ideas (1,000+) have already been submitted through the Power Grid challenge.

In the second phase, eco-home ideas submitted in phase one will be reexamined along with newly submitted ideas, as participants will vie for what remains of the $200 million GE and its venture capital partners set aside for its challenges.

Phase one had $55 million of investment given out, so there's still plenty of capital to be had. In addition to the millions of dollars of investment capital GE and its partners will dole out for top ideas, five Innovation Awards worth $100,000 each will be awarded for the most innovative ideas, which will also be considered for future partnerships with GE.

For more information on this Challenge and to submit your idea for an Eco Home, see http://challenge.ecomagination.com/home.