Solar Decathlon Winner Announced

Winners of the third Solar Decathlon were announced in Washington, D.C. on Friday, October 19, with a team from Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany winning the Overall Prize. From October 12 to October 19, the Mall in Washington was home to a solar village, featuring the homes built by the participants.

Teams from 20 universities from around the globe participated by invitation in the U.S. Department of Energy's contest to design a 100% solar home. Coming in second and third, respectively, were teams from the University of Maryland and Santa Clara University. The Department of Energy has previously sponsored the event in 2002 and 2005. The University of Colorado in Denver won the two prior events.

The winner of the competition is the team that does the best job of blending aesthetics and modern conveniences with maximum energy production and optimal efficiency.

The DOE conducts the contest with three purposes in mind:

1) To encourage young people to pursue careers in science and engineering and to acquaint college students in science, engineering and architecture with solar power and energy efficiency, helping the United States maintain its technological competitive edge;

2) To raise awareness among the general public about renewable energy and energy efficiency and what technologies are available today to help people reduce their energy usage;

3) To help move solar energy technologies to the marketplace faster.

The twenty participating schools were from the United States, Canada, Spain, Germany, and Puerto Rico. Other participating schools were:

New York Institute of Technology

Penn State

Team Montréal (École de Technologie Supérieure, Université de Montréal and McGill University)

Texas A&M University

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Universidad de Puerto Rico

University of Cincinnati

University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Missouri-Rolla

University of Texas at Austin

Carnegie Mellon University

Cornell University

Georgia Institute of Technology