What goes into building and operating a Solar Decathlon house?
The student teams spend almost two years designing and building their approximately 800-square-foot homes and preparing for the competition. Students test their homes in contests encompassing all the ways we use energy in our daily lives. The competition places demands on the buildings’ energy systems to maintain the house within a certain temperature range, to provide lighting, to run appliances, and much more. The homes generate energy with photovoltaic (also called solar electric) systems, to produce electricity, and with solar thermal systems for space heating and cooling and water heating.
