No, not Freedom Fries. It's the Freedom Prize.

Backed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Freedom Prize Foundation is putting up more $4 million in awards for new renewable energy technologies.

Freedom Prizes of $500,000 to $1 million will be awarded for innovative deployment of existing technologies in five categories, including industry, military, schools, government and community.

The Freedom Prize was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which authorized the DOE to support the foundation, but co-founder Josh Becker told the Cleantech Group it was a long road to get to this point.