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Inspiration like no other - The Solar Decathlon 2007
Posted on October 21st, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Urban Planning.
Every two years a group of university students descend upon the Mall in Washington DC for the Solar Decathlon. For anyone who has not seen the event, it is worth a trip to DC in my opinion. I have never been so inspired by the possibilities for the future as when touring the event.
Picture this: 25 University teams made up of students from Architecture, Engineering, and Design programs spend 2 years of there college lives planning, designing and constructing 800 squre foot homes. Each with their own cool approaches to a combination of livability and sustainability.
Every other October, the house roll into town on flatbed trucks and plop themselves down a stones throw from the capital building. But this is not for show, the kids all battle it out in 10 event competition to see whose house will be America’s next top model! Sorry no, I am watching too much reality TV as I write these days. But they do compete and the it is fierce. All the houses have to power a maximum of 800 square feet completely by solar, no exceptions. They must also heat a certain amount of hot water per hour, as well provide good aesthetics for a home, and good communication of their theories through tours and websites.
All of this proved especially challenging in the 2005 when it proceeded to rain for 6 days of the competition.
While the rain was rightly disappointing to many of the teams and a pain for all of the vistors to the houses (For most of the week you get to tour any house you’d like), I actually like seeing whose houses were built tightly and whose leaked like a sieve!
No such problems this year as we had unbelievably beautiful weather for the week and watched a University in Germany take home top honors followed by the University of Maryland.
I spent most of the week on the Mall for the event as we showed off our newest product the PowerCube. There are a couple of observations that I came away with:
- Our good friends Richard King and Wendy Burt at the Department of Energy who run the event, continue to put on an amazing show. The show from the outside was a huge success. Huge crowds, great houses, just a truly fun time. Big up to both of them for pulling it all off yet again.
- The National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden Colorado, is one of the coolest assets the US Government has. In to make sure the show was a success, everyone from the Lab was so knowledgeable, excited about the event, so genuinely passionate about renewable energy. Just a great group.
- The passion and creativity of the students is straight up inspiring. I can’t say this enough, it is just fun to be around that kind of passion for something that will revolutionize our country. They are changing the world.
This decathlon was such a success that there is rumblings of a European version next year as well.
Check out all of the websites for the teams from the SolarDecathlon07 website. So many green products and approach to green building, these websites are a must see if you are thinking about a building project in the near future.
Keep track of this thing as they gear up for 2009 because it is something not to be missed.
