Solar Decathlon Europe Announces 2012 Teams

Solar Decathlon Europe has announced the 20 teams that will participate in its 2012 competition. The teams hail from 15 countries and four continents.

The Solar Decathlon Europe 2012 teams:

• RWTH Aachen University (Germany)
• Hochschule Konstanz University of Applied Sciences (Germany)
• Team Brasil: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)
• Tongji University (China)
• Technical University of Denmark (Denmark)
• The American University in Cairo (Egypt)
• Team Andalucía: Universidad de Sevilla, Universidad de Granada, Universidad de Malaga, and Universidad de Jaén (Spain)
• Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera (Spain)
• Universidad del País Vasco–Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (Spain)
• Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain)
• École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Grenoble (France)
• Arts et Métiers ParisTech (France)
• Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary)
• Team Rome: Roma Tre University and Sapienza Università di Roma (Italy)
• Chiba University (Japan)
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway)
• Delft University of Technology (Netherlands)
• Universidade do Porto (Portugal)
• London Metropolitan University (United Kingdom)
• Team Bucharest 2012: “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, Politehnica University of Bucharest, and Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest (Romania).

“We congratulate the 20 selected teams and hope to see, as in the 2010 edition, ‘research and development in pure state,’" said Spain’s Minister of Housing, Beatriz Corredor. “The high level of the selected projects for 2012 assures that major advances will be made in a shorter period of time in the area of energy-efficient housing,” said Sergio Vega, project manager of Solar Decathlon Europe. “The participating teams will develop, within almost two years of competition, true solar homes, as seen in the last competition in June 2010 in Madrid, and demonstrate to the international market that it is possible to compete with these technologies." Solar Decathlon Europe is organized by the secretary of state for Housing and Urban Development at the Spanish Ministry of Public Works with the collaboration of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the support of the U.S. Department of Energy.