Does the Solar Decathlon Influence the Home-Building Industry?

摘要

The U.S.Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon creates teams of students who can design inspiring, energy-neutral buildings powered by the sun. But do the lessons learned in this biennial competition actually migrate to the building industry?rnIt's not surprising that some team members have stayed together after graduation to form innovative engineering companies. Six members of the 2007 Santa Clara University team launched Valence Energy (valenceenergy.com), developing controls for distributed generation assets within building automation systems. Members of the 2005 New York Institute of Technology team founded a photovoltaic (PV) installation company, EmPower CES (empowerces. com), in Long Island, N.Y. Cornell University's 2005 team spawned Zero Energy Design (zeroenergy.com) of Boston, creating energy-neutral solar homes using whole-building design techniques.