The Solar Decathlon student competition challenges the participating teams to develop completely solar-powered houses. More than 250 buildings have already been built in the 13 competitions that have taken place to date. A considerable amount of investigative spirit has gone into designing all of them, they are comparable and well documented. A freely accessible online database now provides a comprehensive overview and the framework for systematically evaluating the innovations and results.

According to the "Design - Build - Operate" principle, around 20 student teams from around the world design and build houses during each Solar Decathlon, which they then present and operate for two weeks at a central competition venue during the event phase. All houses in each competition must meet the same size and functional requirements. During the presentation the energy consumption and solar energy supply are measured and various other parameters are evaluated. This creates a level of comparability that is unique in the world and which offers the Solar Decathlon significant potential.

In order to make better use of this potential, the "Building Energy Competition and Living Lab Knowledge Platform" (www.building-competition.org) was developed as part of a research project at the University of Wuppertal. The English-language online database makes the wealth of information available on past and future competitions accessible and brings them into a unified structure. This not only ensures centralised archiving, in particular for the competitions in Europe, but also enables a summarised evaluation and comparison.

In the database, every previous and also every future Solar Decathlon will be structured in the same way. In addition to the extensive data, documents and photos of the teams and houses, the respective competition framework is also documented.

Background

The Solar Decathlon student competition was first held in the USA in 2002 and aims to inspire the general public in the field of energy-efficient, solar construction. So far three competitions have been held in Europe. The next Solar Decathlon Europe is taking place in Hungary in 2019. Solar Decathlon competitions are now also held in China, Central America, the Middle East and Africa. The various competition series are organised independently of one another. The principles and goals are the same but the specific requirements differ in terms of the details.

You can find a detailed version of this news item on the ENERGIEWENDEBAUEN web portal (in German).

(dg)