The second edition of the 2012 Solar Decathlon Europe begins on Friday September 14th and will run through the 30th of September at the fairgrounds of the Casa de Campo of Madrid, where 19 university teams from 12 countries compete to build the most efficient house whose sole power source is the sun. The winner will be the one consuming the least amount of natural resources, and producing the minimal waste during its life cycle.
During the final phase of the competition each team has to assemble its house in Madrid, in a space open to the public called Solar Village, where all of them can be visited, while facing the ten tests (hence the name of “decathlon”) that determine which is the winner of the edition. Out of the participating countries, eleven are European (Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom and Romania), and four additional include China, Japan, Brazil and Egypt.
Each of these teams is supported by one or more universities, with financial and technical collaboration of institutions and companies. The leading role throughout the process, from design inception to the final stage of the competition in Madrid falls upon students, known as “Decathletes”, supervised by a teacher, the “Faculty Advisor”.
Goal
The organization of the event has a dual purpose, scientific and
training: the Decathletes learn to work in multidisciplinary teams that face the challenges of the future of building, developing innovative solutions. The public verifies and becomes aware of the real possibilities of combining a reduction of environmental impact, with maintaining the quality of design and comfort in their homes, and professionals get access to techniques and processes that can be studied and applied. In addition, volunteers who are essential for implementation of SDE, have the opportunity to exchange experiences with teams and grow professionally through their work during the competition.
For their part, universities, companies and public institutions have access to a new way of collaboration, rehearsing, for example, scientific projects in real conditions, to launch them to market at a later stage, or refine and find creative applications to existing products.
The German university RWTH that will participate with a group of 50 people has designed a detached house with zero energy consumption on an experimental basis in the German town of Jülich. This house, which works using only renewable energy, has a Schüco PV system as well as windows and doors with high levels of insulation from the same manufacturer.
The “Team Counter Entropy” of RWTH University was responsible for the construction of an energy efficient house for two people that optimizes power over its lifetime and is environment friendly. To achieve this, they are building a one floor house with a seamless transition between the indoor and the outdoor. Its 144 m2 sweeping rooftop houses the PV system. The management system throughout the house is fully automated and is controlled by the innovative iPad and iPhone apps. Schüco’s door control system also plays an important role. It consists of a management system mounted flush to the door and integrated into the profile that optimizes the operation of the gateway. Besides the highly-insulated window, they use a floor to ceiling sliding window at one corner that can be opened and closed without brackets.
Björn Teutriene, team member and fellow of Professor Peter J. Russell of CAAD Department at RWTH explains why Schüco was chosen as partner for the building envelope: “Our concept would not have become a reality with any other manufacturer in the market.” It”s not just a special corner solution for sliding units but especially the combination of energy efficiency, solar energy, automation and design that brings to the concept a competitive advantage.
Seven trucks coming from Jülich are already in Madrid containing all the parts that need to be assembled and be ready by September 14. That”s when 19 teams from 12 countries will compete in a total of 10 categories.
