Wowing jurors with its attention to detail, craftsmanship, and unusual energy visualization system, New Zealand (Victoria University of Wellington) received first place today in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 Engineering Contest for its First Light house.

“The New Zealand house was beautifully executed, with extreme attention to detail and craftsmanship and an intuitive tree-ring visualization system, which makes it easy to understand energy use throughout the house,” said Engineering Contest juror Dr. Hunter Fanney, chief of the building energy and environment division of the engineering laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Coming in second place, Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology received praise from the Engineering Jury for its forward-thinking control system with ultimate user interaction and its unique thermal envelope design that uses commercially available materials such as recycled denim.

The University of Tennessee took third place for its Living Light house, which incorporates off-the-shelf technology for heating and cooling equipment. The team also received praise for its vented double-glass façade.

According to Richard King, Solar Decathlon director, the engineering contest is very important to winning the overall competition.

“The key to winning the Solar Decathlon is getting the house to perform well in the measured contests, which account for half of the points available,” King said. “The best-performing house is a well-engineered house, which is why the Engineering Contest is so important.”

For the Engineering Contest, the jury evaluated the houses on:

• Functionality – To ensure the energy and HVAC systems function as intended
• Efficiency – To measure how much energy the house would save over the course of a year relative to using conventional systems
• Innovation – To gauge the design solutions and their true market potential
• Reliability – To assess the systems and how well they operate at a high level of performance
• Documentation – By reviewing drawings, a project manual, and an audiovisual engineering presentation that accurately reflect the project as constructed on the competition site.

For full scoring details, visit the Engineering Contest scores page.

Carol Anna is the communications manager of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.

Note: Corrections to the Affordability Contest results were announced Sept. 30, 2011.

Proving that the cost of “going green” is decreasing, two teams tied for first place in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 Affordability Contest. Parsons The New School for Design and Stevens Institute of Technology (which includes Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at The New School) built Empowerhouse for less than $230,000. Purdue University’s INhome came in at just less than $250,000. These teams earned 100 points for achieving a target construction cost of $250,000 or less, as evaluated by a professional cost estimator.

Results of the Affordability Contest were announced today in the solar village. Team Belgium (Ghent University) received second place in the contest, with its E-Cube, which was priced at $251,147. In third place was The Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology’s CHIP, which was estimated to cost $262,495.

“These 2011 teams have shown that solar houses can be affordable while still being innovative,” said Matt Hansen, Affordability Contest juror.

The Affordability Contest has had an impact on the design of Solar Decathlon competition houses. Compared to Solar Decathlon 2009 houses, the Solar Decathlon 2011 houses are estimated to cost 33% less. 

Carol Anna is the communications manager of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.

Under mostly cloudy skies and occasional light rain, U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon teams continue assembling their houses around the clock to finish the assembly phase of the competition, which for most (and hopefully all) teams will end Tuesday.

New Zealand celebrates a team member’s birthday and says goodbye to its Canadian team crew from Fenshawe College in Ontario. (Credit: Richard King/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon)

Today, I attended a party that New Zealand (Victoria University of Wellington) held for a team member’s birthday and to say goodbye to their Canadian friends who came from Ontario to help them. The Canadians—from Fanshawe College—are contemplating applying for Solar Decathlon 2013, so the New Zealand team suggested they join them as team crew. Fanshawe sent a few staff and students for assembly and disassembly, and some of them will stay in Washington for the entire event.

In other news:

• Team Massachusetts (Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell) arrived on Thursday three days late but assembled its main structure in only six hours.
• Team New Jersey (Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey and New Jersey Institute of Technology) finished installing its solar array today.
• Maryland was the first team to qualify for electricity meter installation (which happened yesterday) and as of this morning led the other teams in the number of inspections passed.

In addition, the Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology took my camera up in their cherry picker for some way-cool aerial views of the village.

Aerial view of the solar village, with the roof of the SCI-Arc/Caltech house in the foreground, Team Massachusetts in foreground to the left, and Team New York (The City College of New York ) to the right. Maryland is between and just behind them. (Credit: Richard King/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon)

Tomorrow will be more assembly—which will include the installation of lots of village infrastructure (tents, signage, and portable walkways for visitors)—and, no doubt, more firsts and finishes by this stellar group of teams.

Stay tuned!

Richard King is director of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.

U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Director Richard King talks to student team members about their assembly progress.

Editor’s Note: This entry has been cross-posted from DOE’s Energy Blog.

In honor of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon—which challenges 20 collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive—we are profiling each of the 20 teams participating in the competition.

The students from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology, otherwise known as the SCI-Arc/Caltech team, have teamed up to take an interesting approach to the design of their Solar Decathlon house. Unlike the other houses we’ve profiled, CHIP—which stands for Compact House Infinite Possibilities—looks nothing like a traditional home from the outside, but if all goes as planned, it will achieve energy balance for its occupants.

A model of the SCI-Arc/Caltech team's CHIP house. (Credit: All Commercial Photography/U.S.
Department of Energy Solar Decathlon)

In what can only be described as a truly “out of the box” approach to the design of the house (pun intended), the SCI-Arc/Caltech team has wrapped the polygonal house in a “skin” that acts as what the team refers to as “outsulation.” This skin is a system of cellulose-filled batts fastened in layers to the outside surface of the roof (underneath the house’s 235-W photovoltaic panels) and exterior walls. This forms a shell, which is wrapped in airtight and water-resistant, architectural-grade, polymer-coated vinyl.

Inside the house, the team has designed a stepped interior, which is divided into a series of platforms terraced upward and inward from most public to most private. The CHIP team is taking its house to new levels—the top and outermost of which serves as the bedroom, where upon awakening the occupant experiences a downhill  progression via each level, which are bed/groom/dress/eat/live/work, and then backward in the evening.

In addition to the solar panels on the roof of the house, CHIP is filled with technologies that reduce its energy footprint. One innovative technology inside the house is the thermal integration between the HVAC heat pump, which extracts heat from the interior of the house, and the domestic hot water heat pump, which dumps heat into hot water. By using the waste heat from the air-source heat pump to heat hot water, the team says the house will see “tremendous energy savings while fully satisfying air conditioning and hot water demands.”

The SCI-Arc/Caltech team stands in front of CHIP. (Courtesy of the SCI-Arc/Caltech team)

Other energy-saving technologies include a lighting strategy that takes full advantage of natural sunlight through solar tubes and light louvers and uses energy-saving LEDs and CFLs during nighttime hours. CHIP also has a state-of-the-art home automation system that is able to monitor every watt of electricity used by the house and then visually communicate the information to its occupants. CHIP is even connected to the Internet, which means the house can receive weather-forecast information, which allows it to predict cloudy skies and conserve power generated by its solar panels during peak sunlight hours. The team says this system plays a central role in “optimizing the behavior of the house” and is able to “control operation of the active thermal mass, shutting down appliances or lights that are no longer used, and gives the occupants an instant understanding of their energy use and, in turn, their energy bill.”

The CHIP team held a groundbreaking ceremony April 2 at the SCI-Arc campus in Los Angeles and since then has kept busy with various fundraising and awareness events, construction of the home, and further design elements—all while keeping up with a regular course schedule.

April Saylor is an online content producer and contractor to the Department of Energy Office of Public Affairs.