 | Team Germany wins Solar Decathlon
~ DOE
Oct. 19, 2009 - Team Germany, the student team from Darmstadt, Germany, was named the overall winner of the 2009 Solar Decathlon with 908.29 points out of 1,000. |
| Team Germany celebrates after being named the overall winner of the 2009 Solar Decathlon on Oct. 16, 2009. | |
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Oct. 19, 2009 - Team Germany, the student team from Darmstadt, Germany, was named the overall winner of the 2009
Solar Decathlon with 908.29 points out of 1,000.
TWENTY teams competed over the past two years through a design and build phase that culminated in components of the houses being shipped to the National Mall in Washington D. C. in early October where the houses were constructed and operated for the past two weeks.
U.S. Department of Energy Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman announced the winners on Friday. As the overall winner, Team Germany designed, built and operated the most attractive and efficient solar-powered house. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (897.30 points) took second place followed by Team California (863.08 points) in the third place. Team Germany’s winning "Cube House" design produced a surplus of power even during three days of rain. This is the team’s second-straight Solar Decathlon victory, after winning the previous competition in 2007.
“This competition to build zero carbon homes has been a tremendous undertaking and we have seen terrific efforts by all the teams,” Poneman said. “The ingenuity that comes from individual effort is the promise of our future.”
The Solar Decathlon consisted of ten individual contests. The winners of those contests were:
1. Appliances Award: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2. Architecture Award: Team California
3. Comfort Zone: Team Germany
4. Communications: Team California
5. Engineering: University of Minnesota
6. Home Entertainment: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
7. Hot Water: University of Minnesota
8. Lighting Design: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
9. Market Viability: Univeristy of Louisiana at Lafayette
10. Net Metering: Team Germany
The award in the Net Metering contest was very important to Team Germany's overall win. Teams were awarded 100 points if the energy supplied to their home's two-way electrical meter registered zero or less after all of the energy demands of the contest week. Each house in the 2009 Solar Decathlon was connected to a power grid and equipped with a meter that measured both its consumption and production of energy. When a team’s meter showed a negative number, the home had generated surplus energy - worth up to 50 additional points. Team Germany scored a perfect 150 points in this contest.
The application process for the next Solar Decathlon, to be held in fall 2011, has already begun.
