Virginia Tech took top honors to a standing ovation at the Solar Decathlon Europe awards ceremony today in Madrid, Spain. The decathletes were ecstatic to finally win after participating in four Solar Decathlons. And this was the closest margin of victory in a Solar Decathlon. Virginia Tech won by less than a point! (more…)
When I first arrived many days ago, I was so excited, I ran down to the Villa Solar to see what the teams were building. What I found was inspiration. I was inspired by the designs and the hard work. (more…)
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.
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…)
The real measure of success is: If you build it, will they come? This is the first time a Solar Decathlon is being held in Madrid, so one never really knows if the people will like it until the doors open to public visits on the first day. At 11 a.m., people were waiting to get into the village, and it wasn’t long before lines of people were waiting to get inside the houses. It is very gratifying to see the public interest. I assume, because today is Friday, we will see larger crowds this weekend. Congratulations to everyone involved. The hard work and dedication has produced a successful event!
