Off The Cuff

Solar Decathlon Held In Washington, D.C.

Posted by: From Arkansas in Business news, In The House, News And More Stuff, Odds And Ends, Techno Stuff on Oct 09 2007

Welcome back!

The 2007 BP Solar Decathlon is being held in Washington, D.C. in October and is expected to be bigger than ever. You say that you have never heard of this? I hadn’t either but I must say that I am interested now. BP has teamed up with the Department of Energy to sponsor this amazing contest to promote greater awareness of the potential for solar energy and how amazingly efficient it can be.

There are 20 teams from Colleges and Universities from all over the country and international teams that have joined in as well. The object of this contest is to build a home completely run and maintained only by solar power. Each College or University has brought in students from a variety of fields to win this contest including architecture, business, marketing, communications, engineering and many more fields to work together to build a home that is cost effective and run by the sun.

Each team must be mindful of the need for electrical efficiency. The houses must include a working kitchen with all appliances, lighting, comfort as in heat and air conditioning, hot water and all electronic machines work with only the sun powering them. The home must be pleasing, pleasant and attractive enough for someone to live in it comfortably and easily. In addition, each team must put together a vehicle that will serve the needs of the family that will live in the home. This home and vehicle must be for a normal family.

The homes are to be built and then transported to Washington for the BP Solar Decathlon that occurs on Oct. 11-20 at the National Mall. Each team will set up their solar powered homes in the form of a village. At that point, the teams will come together to compete in 10 different contests, the decathlon, to choose the overall winner. The competition is tight and intense. The overall gain is that people do become aware of how solar energy can be used effectively.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!