The Biennial Solar Decathlon, which pits some of the world’s best engineering students against one another, has culminated with Team Germany’s “Cube House” being declared the winner, says an October 16 press release from the U.S. Department of Energy.
“This competition to build zero carbon homes has been a tremendous undertaking and we have seen terrific efforts by all the teams,” Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman said. “The ingenuity that comes from individual effort is the promise of our future.”
Team Germany, comprised of students from Darmstadt, Germany, took first place for the second time in a row, beating out tough competition from the teams of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and California, who placed second and third respectively. Team Germany earned 908.29 points out of a possible 1,000 to win the competition and even produced energy during three days of rain, allowing it to win the “Net Metering” competition, which measures the amount of energy it can produce by using solar panels and sell back to the grid, says the release.
Throughout the Solar Decathlon, teams from around the world including various universities from the U.S. and countries such as Spain, Canada and, of course, Germany were judged on their ability to produce designs that combined the modern comforts of home with the paramount of new eco-friendly designs.
