Team Germany Wins Solar Decathlon – Ja, auf gut!
Filed Under: Environmental News, Green Technology on October 16, 2009
The winner of the 2009 Solar Decathlon has been announced and it’s the team from Germany! This is the second Decathlon win for the Germans, having won back in 2007 as well. Their winning entry?
That building there, which they titled the surPLUShome. Pretty awesome, huh? Let’s look at a few details to find out how they beat out the world-wide competition for this year’s triumph. Nearly all of those black panels are solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and is where the home gets its name. With full sunlight, it can provide double the power it needs, feeding the unused portion into batteries for later use and/or the grid for others.
Using the German Passivhaus building standard (which is similar to LEED’s Gold Standard), the two story cube has a total of 11.1kW of PV panel production over its walls and rooftop, those panels being made of single-crystal silicon. The interior is impressive with a sort of one-room cabin setup where most of the furniture is multi-purpose and the room literally transforms from one use to another.
Other winning features include the automatic louver-covered windows that open and shade according to the amount of sunlight and the air temperatures in the room. Vacuum insulation in the structural panels and a boiler/heat pump provides circulating radiant heat as well as hot water. The home scored a total of 908 of 1,000 possible points, putting it on top.
Illinois Entry
The U.S. Illinois team came in a close second at 897 points and the U.S. California team took third with 863 points.
California Entry
The Solar Decathlon began last week on October 9th and is a competition between student teams from universities around the world competing to build the most eco-friendly home possible. This year’s competition took place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. with categories including every aspect of efficiency in a home from power production to climate controls as well as use of recycled parts/components and eco-friendly materials.
Next year’s Solar Decathlon takes place in Spain.
