Solar Decathlon 2007 – and the winner is... Darmstadt
 Vacupor® VIPs in Solar House of TU-Darmstadt | |
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|  Internal view of th Solar House |
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The judges of the various disciplines were full of praise for the achievements of the Technical University of Darmstadt. The university has superiorly won in three of the ten sub-disciplines - architecture, lighting design and technology. "A class of its own," enthused the architecture jury. Darmstadt has regarding aesthetics and functionality "brought out everything possible." The light-evaluators were fascinated by the aura at night. The jury out of engineers and scientists certified a maximum of innovation.
Also in the energy balance, the judgment is "perfect": Especially the pioneering concepts in the field of renewable energy from sunlight, and the energy management, the jury explicitly highlighted. They were deeply impressed and excited, reported the jurors. There have been queues of visitors the whole week at the competition-site at the National Mall in Washington to take a look inside the house.
"The success of our team in this international challenging competition makes me extremely happy. It underlines that Germany is a worldwide pioneer in the field of renewable energies. Energy and sustainable construction and housing are among the major fields of competence of the Technical University of Darmstadt," said Chairman Hans Juergen Prömel. "With our house we give a unique answer to the question of the future, how mankind will live in the 21st century, an age becoming increasingly rare in resources" says Prömel.
The participation in the Solar Decathlon, and the presentation "solar building-Made in Germany" has been made possible through the support of project partners and sponsors.
Porextherm’s contribution to provide almost 260m² of Vacupor® Vacuum Insulation Panels lead to a successful finish of the Solar Decathlon competition.
The Vacupor® VIPs will be applied in walls, ceilings and floors of the of the solar house.
The conception, planning and implementation of the project were made by a student team, consisting of a core team of 25 architecture students. Since spring of 2006 they were working on the Solar Decathlon, supported by students of partner institutes.
In addition to the department of Design and Energy Efficient Building, the department of Electrical Engineering with Prof. Thomas Hartkopf, and the department of statics of building construction with Prof. Johann-Dietrich Wörner contributed significantly to the success of the project. The College of Engineering in Stuttgart, Prof. Dr. Eicker, supported the team through training in simulation software and the development of a solar cooling system. The department of thermodynamics of the TU Munich, Prof. Thomas Sattelmayer, participated in the areas of control and interconnection in the development of lamellar facade.
Background of the Solar Decathlon
The Solar Decathlon is an international university competition, organized by the U.S. Energy Ministry every second year.
20 University-teams from several countries presented their houses only run on solar energy in a Building Exhibition at the National Mall in Washington DC. They took part in a 10 disciplines global competition against each other. Next to aspects such as architecture, engineering, the use of household appliances and energy balance, it was the everyday life and future viability of the houses evaluated in the competition.
The goal of the Solar Decathlon is to show the potential for solar construction and use of renewable energy to a wide, international audience. The Building Exhibition has been visited by more than 100.000 people.
The team from the Technical University of Darmstadt is the only team from Germany, and in addition to the team from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, one of the two European teams. For the presentation in the United States, the Darmstadt-built high-tech house has been dismantled in special boxes and shipped across the Atlantic. In Washington it had to be rebuild under the time pressure of a few days.
Outlook
After the successful finish of the competition and the return from the USA, the solar house will go on a tour through Germany. In January 2008 the house will be exposed on the DeuBau fair in Essen as part of the federal program "Zukunft Bau". Starting in spring 2008, it will be rebuilt in Darmstadt for further research and be available as a reference object for the project partners and sponsors.
More information
Team web site: www.solardecathlon.de
Organizers web site: www.solardecathlon.org
Pictures for downloading: www.architektur.tu-darmstadt.de/ee/
 Solar House at the Capitol Mall | |
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