Solar Decathlon Europe organizers accept the Sustainable Energy Europe Award for Communicating. (Courtesy of the European Union Sustainable Energy Week)

Solar Decathlon Europe was honored last week by the European Commission with a Sustainable Energy Europe Award in the Communicating category. The annual awards reward best-in-class initiatives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency in the European Union. More than 300 initiatives were considered in this year’s competition.

The Communicating category recognizes projects “that create awareness about … energy challenges, that change perceptions, and that bring about endorsement of energy efficiency and/or renewable energy.”

The jury recognized Solar Decathlon Europe for:

• Providing an excellent learning experience to university students and therefore fostering the research and innovation skills of European youth
• Showing the potential of collaboration between the public sphere and the business world — especially in the task of designing  and building sustainable homes with cutting-edge technologies
• Creating a public space in which more than 200,000 people could witness sustainable energy “in action.”“Solar Decathlon Europe not only helps raise awareness among professionals, but it also shows that it is technically and financially possible to achieve the goal of constructing buildings with near zero energy expenditure, as stated by the European Directive 2020,” said Javier Serra, director of Solar Decathlon Europe. “It has also shown a very strong initiative to present to the public the possibilities of increasing the energy efficiency of houses, and thereby save on the energy bill, through the use of new technologies and renewable energy.”

Solar Decathlon Europe is organized by the Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Development at the Spanish Ministry of Public Works with the collaboration of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the support of the U.S. Department of Energy.

For more information, see the Solar Decathlon Europe website.

Amy Vaughn is the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Web coordinator.

The Solar Decathlon teams have been nominated for a TreeHugger’s  Readers’ Choice Award—and they need your vote to win.

TreeHugger, part of Discovery’s Planet Green initiative, is asking its readers to vote for “the people, ideas, projects, and memes that are pushing green into the mainstream” as part of its Readers’ Choice Awards Best of Green 2011. The Solar Decathlon teams have been nominated as a group in the Design and Architecture category.

Please cast your vote for the Solar Decathlon teams as Best Student Architecture Work today. Voting ends at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 1, 2011.

Amy Vaughn is the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Web coordinator.

Virginia Tech took top honors to a standing ovation at the Solar Decathlon Europe awards ceremony today in Madrid, Spain. The decathletes were ecstatic to finally win after participating in four Solar Decathlons. And this was the closest margin of victory in a Solar Decathlon. Virginia Tech won by less than a point!

Virginia Tech participated in the 2002, 2005, and 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlons. For the faculty advisors who have nurtured three teams of students over 10 years, this victory is sweet. The professors were overjoyed, and the students were jumping and dancing on stage and hugging and high-fiving one another.

The Virginia Tech team displays its first-place trophy.

Virginia Tech had practice on its side, having competed in 2009 in the United States on the National Mall. It was one of the first teams to finish assembling its house and get connected to the grid. Then, when the team won the Architecture contest, it shot out front and never looked back. Although the margin of victory was extremely close, the team maintained focus and had a quiet confidence about it. It was a remarkable victory under formidable odds.

Congratulations also go to the Rosenheim and Stuttgart teams. Both have beautiful houses. Rosenheim nipped at Virginia Tech’s heels all week and almost pulled ahead. Stuttgart won the solar system contest on the last day of judging, which catapulted it from fourth to third.

The University of Florida team celebrates being voted the people’s choice in online voting.

The University of Florida finished eighth. The team was very happy and satisfied with its effort. And it won the online people’s choice award! Way to go, Florida! The Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Cataluña won the most paper votes in the village.

The Spanish Ministry of Housing hired a firm that specializes in estimating the size of crowds by taking photos and calculating area and density. The ministry reported that 191,000 people visited the Villa Solar in Madrid, which surpasses the numbers estimated to have visited the National Mall for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2009. This is just more evidence that the inaugural Solar Decathlon Europe was a big success.

The Virginia Tech team plans to disassemble its house and be back in the United States by Friday, July 2. Its house, on the other hand, is not expected at the Baltimore harbor until August.

Richard King is the director of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. Throughout the Solar Decathlon Europe competition, U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon organizers are reporting from Madrid.

The Solar Decathlon received a 2010 Honor Award for civic innovation from the National Building Museum on May 11, 2010.

On May 11, the National Building Museum presented the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon with a 2010 Honor Award, which recognizes individuals and organizations for making significant contributions to our nation’s building heritage through unique social and civic innovations.

The Solar Decathlon was honored for its commitment to educating the next generation of engineers, architects, and builders through a creative “whole-building approach” with renewable energy, energy-efficient, and environmentally responsible systems.

The museum also presented Honor Awards to multidisciplinary design firm Perkins+Will and New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village founders Harry Connick Jr., Branford Marsalis, Ann Marie Wilkins, and Jim Pate.

For more information about the Honor Award, see the National Building Museum’s 2010 Honor Award press release.

In May, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon will receive the National Building Museum’s Honor Award, which recognizes individuals and organizations for making significant contributions to our nation’s building heritage.

The Solar Decathlon will be honored for its commitment to educating the next generation of engineers, architects, and builders through a creative “whole-building approach” with renewable energy, energy-efficient, and environmentally responsible systems.

For more information about the Honor Award, see the National Building Museum’s 2010 Honor Award press release.