WASHINGTON, DC, October 22, 2007 (ENS) - Germany’s Technische Universität Darmstadt took top honors in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon competition on the National Mall in Washington. University teams competed in 10 areas, ranging from architecture, livability and comfort to how well the homes provided energy for space heating and cooling, hot water, lighting, and appliances.
Over the past two weeks, 20 university teams from the United States, Puerto Rico, Spain, Germany, and Canada brought homes that took two years to design, build and operate the most attractive and energy efficient solar powered home.
 |
The solar house designed and built by Technische Universität Darmstadt displayed on the National Mall. (Photo courtesy Technische Universität Darmstadt) |
The Solar Decathlon’s homes are net-zero-energy, yield zero carbon, and include the latest high-tech solutions and money-saving benefits to consumers, without sacrificing comfort, convenience, and aesthetics.
Solar power is used to run everything in the houses, with enough power left over to run an electric car. The teams worked for more than two years designing, building and testing their homes to bring them to the Solar Decathlon.
Technische Universität Darmstadt earned 888.45 points out of a possible 1,200 to win the competition, followed by University of Maryland with 872.45 points and Santa Clara University with 860.80 points.
Darmstadt won the architecture, lighting, and engineering contests. The architecture jury said the house pushed the envelope on all levels and is the type of house they came to the decathlon hoping to see. The architects judged homes on ease of entry into the house and circulation among the public and private areas; architectural strategy used to accommodate the technologies required to run the house; and generosity and sufficiency of space in the house as well as the house’s strength, suitability and appropriateness of materials in the building
The lighting jury loved the way this house glows at night. The engineering jury gave this team an innovation score that was as high as you could go, and said nobody did the integration of the photovoltaic system any better.
Now that the Solar Decathlon is over, the house will return to Germany to be used as a solar power plant as part of the university's project of a solar campus. All buildings on the campus will be equipped with building-integrated photovoltaics that feed electricity into the German power grid.While congratulating the teams at the closing awards ceremony Saturday, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced over $44 million to support the commercialization and promotion of advanced solar and other clean energy technologies.
Read more at Environment News Service
No comments:
Post a Comment