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THE HOMES OF THE FUTURE

The US Department of Energy (DoE) recently concluded its fourth “Solar Decathlon” in Washington, DC. The ten-event competition is a two-week contest between 20 of the world’s most energy-efficient houses. For the two brief weekends when the houses were open for viewing, the rows of futuristic abodes transformed the usually humdrum National Mall into the busiest and most high tech block in America. On the soggy final day of the contest, throngs of umbrella wielding architects and environmentalists replaced the standard assortment of tourists, protestors and ultimate Frisbee players on the nation’s quad.

Like the last decathlon in 2007, this year’s gold medal went to Darmstadt University of Technology in Hesse, Germany. Their solar-panel-covered “Cube House” (pictured below) won by fewer than 11 points out of a possible thousand, yet it aced the critical net metering category, by which the competition's judges measured the energy a house produces or consumes over the course of the competition. (If only America had a robust smart grid capable of absorbing excess power, such  dwellings could actually generate extra juice to go around.) Germany's engineers and scientists have benefited from government incentives to make solar energy competitive with coal.

Some disgruntled American spectators took issue with the scoring criteria, which worked to Team Germany's advantage. The decathlon's strong emphasis on technology meant that more aesthetically pleasing designs, such as the one put forward by third-place Team California, were handicapped because they were not covered in solar panels. Besides looking odd, plastering a house with photovoltaic cells is expensive. If affordability had been more heavily weighted in the scoring, the $300,000 runner up house from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign would certainly have topped the $800,000 model from Germany. The next decathlon is not scheduled until the fall of 2011, so there is plenty of time for the DoE to reconsider the competition's rules.

But the clouds and controversy could not dispel the overall enthusiasm of the crowds and contestants. A. Siegel, an environmental blogger, captured the spirit of the decathlon when he noted, "while there is a 'winner', not a single one of the entrants merits the term 'loser'--they all merit respect and admiration, and there are things to learn from every team's efforts, problem solving, and designs". In spite of the overcast skies, the event was a bright moment for the future of solar energy.

Click here to see videos of the solar homes.

~ CORBIN HIAR