Solar Decathlon Hits DC

Transcript

Twenty college teams from around the world recently converged for 10 days on the Mall in Washington D.C. They were there to show how a home can run only on solar energy. This competition, called the Solar Decathlon taps studentsí ideas and ingenuity. Carnegie Mellon University and Penn State, each designed a house to compete. Violet Law traveled to Washington to follow the competition.

[Ambient sound of the National Mall]

LAW: From the Capitol to the Washington Monument, two rows of houses bake in the hot sun. People snake around the homes to wait their turn to tour inside. It seems like an open-house event, except that most houses feature solar panels and unique designs. In fact, college students designed these homes to compete in ten categories ñ from architecture to energy conservation to market appeal. Nearly every morning, judges announce the category results in the middle of the Mall. Each teamís ranking can go up and down.

[Applause]

JUDGE: Iím giving the award for the market viability competition. Iím very proud to announce the third place team is Penn State. [Cheers and applause]

LAW: For Penn State, itís been a roller-coaster ride. Unlike Carnegie Mellon, this is their first time competing. The teamís cracked the top three ranking on the third to last day. Autumn Evans is a team faculty member. This morning, she canít resist the urge to check the scoreboard. Itís a computer screen projected in a tent facing the monument. Sometimes, it can be painfully slow.

EVANS: Iím waiting for the updates to see how we place overall in the top 20. ñ O, no...well it means itís updating. I didnít expect to get this far. This is incredible. But now that weíre here...[laughter]

TORRES: You can see people in action. Weíre having a party in here tonight. Our kitchen is designed in a way that it is centrally located. All the appliances are energy-star rated.

LAW: Public tours are a big part of the decathlon. This yearís event has drawn about 120,000 people to the mall. Richard King is the decathlonís organizer and founder with the U.S. Department of Energy. He says a ever big crowd means that the competition can help educate more people about energy efficiency in their own homes.
KING: This is more than an academic exercise. Itís a real demonstration of products, ideas and innovation that people can use in their daily lives.

LAW: But Eric Ray checks out the Carnegie Mellon house because of his academic interests. The high school junior is looking at colleges with strong architecture and engineering departments. A CMU architecture student tells Ray how the piping system in their solar house is set up.

STUDENT: [Sound of suction device] We have this suction cup, which you can lift up. And here is our manifold. You can literally add more pipes to the system. The whole thing is distributed through the core of the house. So when we put the whole house together we donít have to put in any plumbing connections.

RAY: Can I take a picture of it then?

STUDENT: Sure.
LAW: On the last day, when the final scores are about to come out, students leave their houses to the visitors. They all join the crowd at the award ceremony.

CROWD: Yeah, Carnegie Mellon [applause] P-S-U. Letís go PSU. [applause]

LAW: Carnegie Mellonís one-time German partner, the Technical University of Darmstadt, soars to number one on the last day. Penn State is knocked off from the third place hours before the last contests are called. Faculty member Autumn Evans returns from the ceremony. She slumps in a bench near the house.

EVANS: Iím not even thinking right now. Iím a little stunned. A lot that went into this. A lot of energy, emotion, a lot of money went into this so I think itís going to take some while to recuperate from that.

LAW: Visitors like Michael Butterfield hope the students will keep plugging away. Butterfield says heís been coming to the decathlon to get more ideas on how to build his own solar home some day.

BUTTERFIELD: If I come to enough of these competitions, I may get inspired and do it. It has been done, and it can be done and it should be done.

LAW: For The Allegheny Front, this is Violet Law.