The SOLAR DECATHLON Knowledge Platform –Concept and Initial Application

摘要

The student competition Solar Decathlon (SD) is an established platform to demonstrate and analyze approachesto energy efficiency and solar energy utilization in residential buildings. Its outstandingly unique feature ofgenerating at least 15 to 20 highly comparable houses each competition opens the possibility of being a sourcefor research projects with a lack of case studies. Due to the main goal of previous SD competitions of being acommunicative event to educate the general public, how to use renewable energy, the results from previouscompetitions do not meet scientific demands. Knowledge of the previous results is crucial to influence future SDresults to be useful outside the competition for research purposes. This paper evaluates the possibility of usingthe SD houses as building performance test facilities and shows the need and application of a SD database withharmonized documentation of previous SD houses as well as the possibilities to use the data.