Solar Decathlon prize goes to Germany's TU Darmstadt
The Solar Decathlon solar home competition finished up on Saturday with Germany's Technische Universitat Darmstadt taking top honors.
For about 8 days, students from 20 universities showed off their solar-powered houses to judges, government officials, and the general public on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Darmstadt's top placing was helped by top score in the Architecture contest.
(Credit: Solar Decathlon/U.S. Department of Energy.)For previous coverage of the Solar Decathlon, see here for photos and see here for videos and description of the technologies and designs on display.
TU Darmstadt unseated the winner of the last two competitions, the University of Colorado at Boulder (click here for video interview).
Second place went to the University of Maryland and third place went to first-time entrant Santa Clara University (click here for video).
Darmstadt won the Architecture, Lighting, and Engineering contests during the Decathlon. Judges said it was the best at integratiung photovoltaics into the building: for the competition, it created louvers on the outside of the building with solar cells on them.
Solar cells integrated into louvers.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)He said his university hopes to bring the building back to Germany as part of a plan to build a solar-powered campus.
The house allows for extensive use of daylighting--letting natural light in--and has clever indoor designs. There are cavities in the floor where both a couch and bed can be hidden.
Universities from Canada, Puerto Rico and Spain also participated in the contest.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 





I assume this is for safety and air quality reasons.
I think that kind of negates the energy efficiency provided by extreme insulation.
Then again, he might have just been trying to cover for the drafty homes he was building...