When I arrived onsite yesterday, Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 student teams were in the middle of the final phase of heavy construction of their self-designed and self-built project houses.

Since the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2009, a temporary, ground-laid electrical grid (or “microgrid”) has connected Solar Decathlon houses with one another and the local utility. The village microgrid allows excess power generated by the houses’ solar electric systems to be sent back to the larger city utility grid and its customers. The microgrid also enables the competition houses to draw energy from the utility when consumption exceeds production.