Skip navigation to main content. U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon | Powered by the Sun
Photo of the north side of the 2005 Solar Decathlon solar village under construction.

As you can see, the solar village at the 2005 Solar Decathlon is beginning to take shape. This is a shot of the North side of the village with the California Polytechnic State University house is in the foreground.

Photo of the South side of the 2005 Solar Decathlon solar village under construction.

Here, you can see the South side of the solar village with the University of Colorado in the foreground. It's amazing to think that in only a matter of a few days these houses will all be complete and ready to welcome visitors!

Solar Decathlon 2005

Daily Journal — October 1, 2005

Quieter this morning as many of the decathletes were sleeping in after working almost non-stop for two days. Once the houses have a roof teams can relax a little in case it rains, but no worry there — the weather report is perfect. The forecast is for several days of beautiful autumn weather in Washington with clear skies through Monday. We love the sunshine!

The last of the 18 teams arrived last night! Crowder College arrived last night and unloaded their house. Crowder College is two days behind, but the team is determined to be ready by Thursday morning for the opening ceremony. If anyone can do the impossible here, it is Crowder, so I'm not worried. In fact, all the other teams better not count them down and out. In 2002, the University of Colorado at Boulder was a day late getting to the Mall and they won!

I just walked down our main street called Decathlete Way to make an assessment of all the teams' progress. This assessment is based on visual presentation only, i.e., which houses look most finished. There is still much to do inside these houses, but I wanted to give you an idea of progress.

So, as of 3 p.m. Saturday, October 1, the following teams have a house fully enclosed with roof and siding:

The teams who still do not have fully enclosed houses are:

Finally, both Crowder College and the Rhode Island School of Design, because they arrived one-to-two days late, are still off-loading major sections of their houses.

Tomorrow, we will start to instrument the houses that are most complete. Each house will have several sensors installed to measure inside temperature, humidity, light level, hot water temperature, etc. Officials will also start to inspect homes for rules compliance. For example, each house must not exceed 800 sq. ft., and must not be higher than 18 feet. As you can see, there is plenty to do for all of us!

Reporting from the Village
Richard King, Department of Energy