June 28, 2010

When it comes to renewable energy, people often hold up Europe as the most progressive place to find solar, wind, and geothermal power, not to mention superefficient modern homes.

So it may be a bit of a surprise that a group of Virginia Tech students and faculty members has beaten teams of architects and engineers from 16 other universities from around the world to claim the top prize in the Solar Decathlon Europe.

The competition, which was held in Madrid and just wrapped up on Sunday, was the first European version of the Solar Decathlon, which has been sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and held every two years on the National Mall in Washington.

The contest invites architecture and engineering programs from universities around the world to build small, solar-powered houses. The structures, which are open for the public to tour, are judged for their aesthetics, engineering, market appeal, and, most important, ability to generate power for heating water, air conditioning, and lighting.

The big win in Europe is quite a comeback for the Virginia Tech team, which finished in 13th place in the 2009 Solar Decathlon in Washington. Virginia Tech's "Lumenhaus," which was inspired by the Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, got some upgrades since its appearance at the Washington contest, including more solar panels and an expansion of the outside deck space.

The University of Florida—the only other American team in the European contest—finished in eighth place.

The faculty advisers for the Virginia Tech team sounded a little dazed when reached by phone in Madrid on Monday.

"It feels very rewarding," said Robert Dunay, a professor of architecture. "We are here with the smallest team and with largely undergraduate students. The fact that we can win over very, very skilled and highly funded German and French teams is a remarkable achievement."

Mr. Dunay and his colleagues say that the German government gave each of its teams 400,000 euros (nearly $500,000) to participate in the contest, and those teams may have raised additional money on their own. Two German teams, from the University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim and Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, finished second and third, respectively, in the Madrid competition. And another German team, Darmstadt University of Technology, won the U.S. competitions in both 2007 and 2009.

Virginia Tech's team, meanwhile, is in debt. "Since we competed in Washington, we have not been able to raise a penny for this house," said Joseph Wheeler, an associate professor of architecture. The team took out a loan from the university to cover the costs of transporting the house to Madrid—about $180,000, round trip.

Mr. Dunay said Virginia Tech made a poor showing in the 2009 competition because of a mix-up in the house's inspection, which led the team to lose points and miss opportunities to test its equipment. The team later failed the water-heating part of the competition, he said.

Mr. Dunay hoped that the win would bring additional attention and money to research in sustainable architecture, to match support enjoyed by the German teams. "There is a lot of force behind their projects that is not present in the U.S. right now," he said.

The competing teams, in the order of their final standing, are as follows:

1. Virginia Tech
2. University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim
3. Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences
4. École National Supérieure d'Architecture de Grenoble
5. Aalto University
6. Bergische Universität Wuppertal
7. Arts et Métiers Paris Tech
8. University of Florida
9. Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera
10. Fachhochschule fur Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin
11. Tongji University at Shanghai
12. Universidad de Sevilla
13. Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña
14. Universidad de Valladolid
15. University of Nottingham
16. Tianjin University
17. Instituto de Arquitectura Avanzada de Cataluña