Solar Decathlon Grand Prize goes to Germany
October 19, 2007
It’s all over bar the shouting, cheering and celebrating. The overall winner of the 2007 Solar Decathlon in Washington DC, announced today, is the Technische Universitat Darmstadt. The German university team beat out nineteen other teams from colleges and universities in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Spain in the prestigious biennial solar house-building competition.
In the Decathlon, teams compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. It’s also an event to which the public is invited to observe the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design. The event takes place on the National Mall in Washington DC, and is judged in ten different categories: architecture, engineering, market viability, communications, comfort zone, appliances, hot water, lighting, energy balance and ‘getting around’.
The Darmstadt team won the architecture, lighting and engineering contests, enough to propel them into first place over the University of Maryland, which had held first place through much of the event, and third-place finisher Santa Clara University.
Read much more about the Solar Decathlon here.
