News

By Chris Stimpson
Executive Campaigner, Solar Nation

Several weeks ago the Department of the Interior reneged on its permit for the Solar Decathlon to be held on its usual site on the National Mall.  This decision took the cutting-edge biennial solar building competition from a significant location between the Capitol building and the White House, and forced it to look for a home anywhere from the Washington suburbs to Chicago or Los Angeles.

Energy & Environment News reported this afternoon that the Solar Decathlon is moving down the Potomac River to the National Harbor in Maryland. We blogged about the move while it was still tentative, almost three weeks ago. A student group circulated a petition that ended up garnering over 7,300 signatures to keep the decathlon on the Mall. Ironically, just yesterday the Washington Post ran two letters to the editor disagreeing with the Interior and Energy departments' decision to move the event.

There's been no official response yet from the student group that organized the unsuccessful petition. E&E's reporter, John McArdle, did manage to get a hold of a participant who was leading efforts to keep the competition in D.C.

 

We reported on Monday that it was looking like the Solar Decathlon's days at the National Mall were over. Now, a student group is petitioning against the National Park Service's decision. As of this posting, over 4,000 people had signed the petition. Here's their plea:

Help put the US Department of Energy's 2011 Solar Decathlon back on the National Mall

Dear President Obama, Congressmen and Congresswomen,

As a student finalist in the U.S. Department of Energy's 2011 Solar Decathlon/Supporter, I respectfully request that you speak out against the National Park Service's recent announcement that the U.S. Department of Energy must seek a new site for its Solar Village this September. 

It appears the Solar Decathlon will no longer be held at the National Mall, its venue for all previous competitions. The concern is that the Decathlon and other high-profile events have degraded Washington, D.C.'s 684-acre park over the decades. The National Park Service is in the midst of formulating a plan to restore the site, sometimes called America's "front yard."

The biannual event features 20 collegiate teams competing against each other to design, build and operate solar-powered houses. The U.S. Department of Energy organizes the event, granting each team $100,000. In previous years teams were judged based on architecture, engineering, efficiency and eight other factors. This year, for the first time, affordability will also be considered.

By Alex Palomino
University of Florida

Day 1 : Monday 6/7/10

9:00am: Solar Decathlon Europe Welcome

By Charlie Angelo
SOLAR TODAY Intern

Team Germany, represented by Technische Universitat Darmstadt, placed first in the U.S. Department of Energy 2009 Solar Decathlon. Team Germany leap-frogged Illinois and Team California with a perfect score of 150 in the decathlon's final event, the net metering contest. The win is the second straight for Team Germany, who came out on top of the 2007 Solar Decathlon as well.

 

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Department of Energy – There’s a new contest this year at the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, and it may help show the way for homeowners to turn back the costs of their electric bills.

The Net Metering contest adds an entirely new dimension to the challenge, as homes are connected to a grid to measure how well they produce or consume power.

“In today’s sophisticated energy grid, houses that use solar power can feed energy back into the power grid, eliminating the need for costly battery storage systems,” said Richard King, director of the Solar Decathlon, who is with the Energy Department. “Imagine receiving a zero bill for electricity. These Solar Decathlon homes are showing us the way today.”

By Chris Stimpson
Executive Campaigner
Solar Nation

 

Andy and Pam Cudahy: "We've been interested in the potential of solar power since the oil crisis of 1974, and (the Solar Decathlon) is a great place to come and see how far it's progressed.

"We're recent retirees, and we're planning to move down to Charlotte, North Carolina. If we can, we'll build something new there, and try to include a lot of what we've seen today in it. Mainly, that would be the passive design stuff -- overhangs, serious insulation, advanced windows, etc. But on the active side, we could probably manage solar hot water; PV might have to wait for better pricing or better incentives."

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Team California took the early lead today in the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon by winning the Architectural contest.  The Solar Decathlon, an international design competition held on the National Mall, challenges university-led teams to design, build and operate the most attractive, functional, and energy efficient solar-powered homes.  This is the fourth time DOE has held the competition since 2002.

Team California moved up to first place today from third place by winning the Architecture contest with a score of 98 points and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's "Cajun-style" home, built to withstand dramatic weather, won Market Viability with a score of 97 points.  Both contests were announced today and were worth a possible 100 points.

Architectural Juror Jonathan Knowles, from Rhode Island School of Design, said Team California's creation of microclimates in the home went well beyond expectations of competition rules and that the home broke out of the box in aesthetic appeal.

"Team California created a solar home with a beautiful design in every respect, incorporating a crystal-clear concept that successfully translates a regional architecture to Washington, D.C.," Knowles said.  "The interior and exterior appears as one."

By Chris Stimpson
Executive Campaigner
Solar Nation

Oct 11: The more I see of the houses in the Solar Decathlon, the more I realize that this is not a competition with a level playing field. Or to put it another way, every one of the twenty entries makes such a unique and independent contribution to the further deployment of solar power that they could be considered winners even before the judging starts.

Today I spent some time with David Siguenza of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, learning about the unusual structure that is Team Spain's entry in the event. One of the first buildings a visitor sees after emerging from the Smithsonian Metro station, the 'Black and White House' appears as a flattened cube wearing a house-size mortar board at a jaunty angle.

The 'mortar board' is really an inverted pyramid pivoting on a ball-and-socket joint a couple of feet above the house's flat roof, with a PV array covering its entire upper surface. Nine times a day the pyramid moves to align itself with the sun's changing position, so as to maximize the efficiency of the panels' monocrystalline cells. It's a perilous-looking arrangement, one that's easy to visualize taking off in a high wind like the farmhouse in 'The Wizard of Oz', but that contingency has been considered by the designers. The structure is stressed to accommodate winds up to 120 mph, and at 90 mph it automatically levels itself and is secured by hydraulic jacks.



The walls of the Black and White House also contribute to its electrical output. Floor-to-ceiling panels of polycrystalline silicon cells provide extra power, optimized for cloudy days, and shading for interior spaces. And the theme of following the sun is taken up here too, since the panels pivot at the house's corners to follow the progress of the sun in the sky. It's hardly surprising that the designers of the Black and White House have applied for a total of five patents for the various systems that run it.

The aggregate output of the roof- and wall-based PV systems is 14.9 kW, exceeding the needs of the house by a factor of six. This is augmented by a solar hot water system for domestic hot water and radiant floor heating.

So how are we - or, more realistically, the juries - supposed to judge between a house like this and that of Rice University, intended for low-to-middle-income use in housing projects? By design, that house deploys only as much PV as is needed to balance its expected energy consumption. Or the Puerto Rican entry, designed to mimic traditional Caribbean building styles while being energy-efficient and affordable? Or Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Meltwater house, in which an emphasis was placed on using locally obtained waste materials?

The short answer is that they will, but the final scores the juries assign cannot possibly reflect the disparate values applied by teams to their efforts. In effect, the twenty teams took off in twenty different directions - Iowa State to design a home specially for seniors, Ontario to craft a solution for higher northern latitudes, Louisiana-Lafayette to reflect Cajun traditions and customs in its design. For each team, a unique concept.

As for Team Spain, the students don't regard the surplus energy produced by their ‘pyramid' as excessive, more as an amount of power waiting for a user. This could be a plug-in hybrid car, or a doubling in size of the family living in the house (for which purpose the house is of modular design, and can be expanded outwards or upwards). In fact, the pyramid with its support structure can be used without a house beneath it; it could be used as a power-generating carport, or as a mini-generator for several buildings, or as a mobile power source for field operations. Applications, in short, far beyond the scope of the Solar Decathlon.

Since no scoring system could possibly level the playing field for all these players, we feel constrained to regard the ‘competition' element of the Solar Decathlon as little more than an incentive for the teams to apply their creativity to the best possible ends. Looking around the houses in the solar village (and if you haven't yet made the journey to Washington to experience them, don't delay much longer!), we'd say it's done an excellent job of that.


About one hundred of the reasons why you shouldn't wait to visit the Solar Decathlon: Crowds lining up today to visit (left to right) the Team California, Puerto Rico, and Illinois solar houses.