Below you will find Solar Decathlon news from the Contests archive, sorted by date.
By Carol Anna
One of the 10 contests in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011, Energy Balance measures the net energy each house produces or consumes over the course of the competition.
Congratulations to the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences team for filling its house full of innovative technology. Today, points were awarded by all the juries at Solar Decathlon Europe for innovation. These points were added up to determine the winners of the Innovation contest.
At this afternoon’s award ceremony, the first-, second-, and third-place teams were announced. However, the points are being kept secret until Sunday evening to add suspense. But with the overall standings so very close—the top three teams (Virginia Tech, École National Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble, and the University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim) are within a few points of one another—who needs more suspense? (more…)
This afternoon at 5 p.m., the awards for the Sustainability contest were presented. Sustainability is one Solar Decathlon Europe contest that is not in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. It is worth 120 points, and it evaluates how green a house is. Equal to the Architecture contest in points, Sustainability is a contest many European teams designed their houses around in the hopes of acquiring an advantage. For Arts et Métiers Paris Tech, its green roof and recycled materials really paid off. The University of Nottingham, with its high-density urban solution, took second place.
Too close to call! Virginia Tech had a commanding 35-point lead at Solar Decathlon Europe earlier this week, but the University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim has cut that lead to only six points now. With only today and tomorrow left to score performance-based points, everything the teams do—from hot water draws to cooking to washing to cooling their houses—really makes a difference. Every point counts.
The Germans and French ran away with the prestigious Engineering and Construction contest at Solar Decathlon Europe today. Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences was awarded first place, and Arts et Métiers Paris Tech took second. A two-way tie was announced for third between the University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim and Ecole National Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble.
The jury members had high praise for the engineering excellence exhibited by all the teams and said even they learned a lot. They also said they were impressed by how many teams focused on the goal of “doing more with less.” That is the real challenge today for engineers, they said. (more…)
The award ceremonies continue in Solar Decathlon Europe’s Villa Solar. This afternoon, the Communications and Social Awareness award was presented to the University of Florida for its solar house, RE:FOCUS.
As of 7 p.m. Monday, Virginia Tech remains in first place overall at Solar Decathlon Europe because of its third-place finish in the Industrialization and Market Viability contest. The Industrialization and Market Viability announcement was made at 5 p.m. today. The Virginia Tech decathletes were extremely happy to again place in the top three in a major contest. (more…)
Virginia Tech is in first place at Solar Decathlon Europe—and it was judged first in the Architecture contest! What a busy weekend for the Virginia decathletes. They worked their way up from third place on Saturday to take first place Sunday based on solid performance in the measured contests. Lumenhaus has performed almost perfectly so far. (more…)
