Today is Earth Day, a day that promotes and advocates for conservation, environmental protection, and sustainability around the world. To commemorate the occasion, I thought I’d share a blog post about an initiative sponsored by the US government that promotes solar energy. As with my previous post, I first wrote this entry for a client, but that client decided to cancel his blog before I could submit this post to him. So, I decided to upload it here instead with some edits. I’ll be glad to know your thoughts!
College Students Shine in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
From preschool through the twelfth grade, students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have no shortage of STEM-related competitions to enter that will challenge their abilities. College students also have the opportunity to hone their skills by participating in STEM-related competitions. One of these competitions is the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. Read on to learn more about this long-running event.
Overview of the Solar Decathlon
According to the Solar Decathlon’s website, the competition was started in 2002 as a way to highlight not only the potential of solar technologies but also to show the potential of building with renewable resources while maximizing affordability, resilience, and health. College students who participate in the competition aim to blend outstanding design features and engineering feasibility to either design or design and build a variety of buildings. Teams that participate in the competition are expected to focus on innovation, marketability, efficiency, and use of smart energy.
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Trophies for the four top overall finishers at the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017. (Flickr/John De La Rosa) |
As the US Department of Energy explains on its Solar Decathlon website, the competition’s purposes are to prepare students to enter the clean energy workforce; to educate the public about energy-efficient design, clean energy technologies, smart home solutions, electric vehicles, and high-performance buildings; and to demonstrate the comfort of efficient homes that rely on renewable energy. To date, the competition has involved 465 teams totaling 23,000 participants from more than 23 countries. Houses designed and built as part of the competition are located in 35 US states, Puerto Rico, Washington DC, Spain, China, Canada, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand, Austria, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
In order to participate, teams must apply and have their applications evaluated by engineers, scientists, and building experts, as outlined on the Solar Decathlon website. The 10 contests that make up the Solar Decathlon focus on energy performance, engineering, financial responsibility and affordability, resilience, architecture, operations, market potential, comfort and environmental quality, innovation, and presentation. Additionally, the competition is divided into two parts, one focused on designing and one focused on building.
About the Design Challenge
The Design Challenge portion of the Solar Decathlon is an annual opportunity, according to the official website. In the Design Challenge, college students work over one or two semesters to identify creative solutions to real-world problems in the building industry. Teams compete in several divisions, each one focused on different kinds of buildings.
In 2020, the grand-prize-winning designs highlighted on the Solar Decathlon website were from the University of Oregon, which designed an elementary school building, and the Miami University of Ohio, which designed an attached housing building. First place winners in the other divisions included Monash University, which is located in Australia, with a suburban single-family building, the University of British Columbia, which is located in Canada, with an urban single-family building, the University of Arizona with a mixed-use multifamily building, and the Illinois Institute of Technology with an office building. These teams represented the best of 45 teams from 31 colleges and universities that entered the competition.
(*Note: Since the time I originally wrote this blog post, the 2021 Design Challenge has taken place, with winners announced on Sunday, April 18. Winners of the 2020 Build Challenge, discussed in the next section, were also announced on that date and can be found in the same announcement as the 2021 Design Challenge winners.)
About the Build Challenge
The Build Challenge, according to the Solar Decathlon website, is a biannual contest that requires not only designing but also building a house that can be lived in. Teams competing in the Build Challenge spend two years completing their houses, which they build in their local communities. A feature for the highest performing teams in the 2020-2021 competition is presenting their work at the National Association of Home Builders International Builder’s Show.
The most recent colleges and universities listed on the Solar Decathlon website as having teams participate in the Build Challenge are located both in the United States and globally. In the United States, Kansas State University, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Denver, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and Weber State University are listed. Internationally, the Hogeschool Utrecht University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile, and the University of Waterloo in Canada are listed as participants.
International Reach
In addition to the Solar Decathlon hosted in the United States, Solar Decathlons are held internationally as well. Listed on the Solar Decathlon website are competitions held in Africa, China, Europe, India, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. The competition in Africa was initiated in 2016, the China competition was first held in 2011, and the competition in Europe began in 2007. Meanwhile, the competition in India was begun in 2020, while the Latin America and Caribbean competition was established in 2014, and the Middle East competition was started in 2015. These international competitions host teams from around the world, similar to the United States competition.