This article was originally published on the blog of Aurora Solar, a solar design and sales software company.

By Andrew Gong

Two weeks ago, during the Solar Decathlon 2017 competition, we explored the solar powered house designs from participating university teams. The designs showcased many creative and resourceful design strategies—and presented a fun challenge for modeling in Aurora.

With the competition now complete, today’s post takes a closer look at the top three teams to identify some of the solar design lessons from their success.

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2015 competition started yesterday at 11 a.m., giving teams nine days (until 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 16) to prove they have the best house and a winning team.

New contest data displays are now available on the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon website. If you are interested in the real-time performance of each house and want to keep a close eye on the competition, check out the Contests section pages.

I am proud to be an American—and prouder yet to be an employee of the U.S. Department of Energy. We brought an inspiring and beneficial competition to the People’s Republic of China! By the end of the event, a quarter-million people will visit the competition houses displayed at Solar Decathlon China. The event has made a real impression on the government and people of Datong. I hope it leads to positive change.

How do you identify the measured contest captain on each U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon team? Listen for words such as datalogger, monitored performance subcontest, and database-driven scoring application.

The typical college student does about two loads of laundry a week. However, the student decathletes must go above and beyond this amount to earn full points for the Appliances Contest. In this contest, teams prove that their houses are not just energy-efficient but also fully functional.