A student team at Ohio State’s College of Engineering has been selected to participate in an international, U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored competition to design, build and operate a fully solar-powered home.
The prestigious competition, called the Solar Decathlon, pits university-led teams in the two-year contest, which culminates in fall 2009 when their homes will be shipped to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for display and final judging.
Ohio State is among 20 teams from the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Spain and Germany that were selected from universities around the world. Each team will receive $100,000 from the Department of Energy for their project, which must use energy-efficient technology and demonstrate that homes powered entirely by the sun do not have to sacrifice all the modern comforts and aesthetics to which Americans are accustomed.
Ohio State’s Solar Decathlon team includes students from various departments of the College of Engineering and the Knowlton School of Architecture as well as students from other departments, including political science, construction systems management and environmental and natural resources.
The Solar Decathlon’s emphasis on energy parallels that of Ohio State’s College of Engineering, which in 2007 established the Center for Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, an effort supported by college and university backing of $10.9 million over five years. In addition, the energy focus aligns with Ohio State’s university-wide Institute for Energy and the Environment, also established in 2007, which will, among other tasks, foster partnerships between colleges within Ohio State as well as researchers at other Ohio universities.
For more information about the Solar Decathlon, visit www.solardecathlon.org. More details about Ohio State’s team are available at osusolardec.org.
Editors:s Please see attached fact sheet for more details. For additional information, please contact Joan Wall, Editor, College of Engineering Communications, wall.107@osu.edu or 614-292-4064.
Solar Decathlon Fact Sheet
Event: The two-year Solar Decathlon culminates with a final display and competition open to the public at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in fall 2009.
Competition Basics: Each team will receive $100,000 from DOE to uniquely design, build and operate an energy efficient, fully solar-powered home. The department’s Solar Decathlon complements the President’s Solar America Initiative, which seeks to make solar power cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity by 2015.
Requirements: The Decathlon gets its name from the 10 specific areas of competition: architecture, engineering, market viability, communications, comfort, appliances, hot water, lighting, energy balance and transportation. In addition to producing enough electricity and hot water to perform all the functions of a home, from powering lights and electronics to cooking, washing clothes and dishes, each home must produce surplus energy sufficient to power an electric car.
Sponsors: U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, in partnership with its National Renewable Energy Laboratory
History: The competition has been held four times, every other year since 2002, and will conclude in 2015. This is Ohio State’s first entry in the decathlon.
