Penn State team enters solar energy design competition

University Park, Pa. -- An interdisciplinary team of students and faculty assembled through Penn State's Center for Sustainability has gained acceptance into the 2007 Solar Decathlon, an international collegiate competition in solar design sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy in which student teams design and build a solar-powered home.

When completed, the home will be assembled on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the two-week decathlon competition. The Penn State team, led by David Riley, associate professor of architectural engineering; Andy Lau, associate professor of engineering design; Scott Wing, associate professor of architecture; and Lisa Iulo, assistant professor of architecture, will compete against MIT, Cornell, The University of Texas, Carnegie Mellon and the two-time winner of previous competitions, the University of Colorado. A total of 20 university teams were selected for the event.

Each team will be awarded $100,000 over two years from the Department of Energy. Additional sponsors and contributions will be sought to support the Penn State entry.

The goal of the Solar Decathlon is to advance the use of solar energy, in particular, building-integrated photovoltaics which generate electricity from the sun.

At the conclusion of the event, the solar home will be returned to the Penn State campus for use as an experimental student residence and laboratory at the Center for Sustainability's 8.5 acre site of Porter Road.

Penn State's interdisciplinary team includes students and faculty in architecture, engineering, kinesiology and physics. Research programs in architectural engineering, the Energy Institute, the Center for Space Research Program, the Applied Research Lab and the Hybrid and Hydrogen Vehicle Research Center also will combine efforts in the design of the home.

The Penn State concept, named the Morning Star, will blend advanced energy technologies with environmentally friendly green building materials. The design also will draw upon a partnership between Penn State and the Northern Cheyenne tribe that was formed in 2001 to seek alternative housing solutions for American Indian tribes. This partnership, called the American Indian Housing Initiative, also is the focus of a popular course at Penn State in which students travel to the Northern Cheyenne reservation each summer to construct homes and community facilities.

The team coordinators plan to involve as many students as possible in the event beginning with a Green Design Competition in which students will have the opportunity to submit design ideas in categories of architecture, engineering, graphic design and Web design. Also, a special presentation by Steven Strong, a national leader in solar design, has been scheduled for all interested students, faculty and community members at 7 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 7, in 121 Sparks Building, University Park.

More information about the design competition and the solar decathlon can be found on the Center for Sustainability Web site at http://www.engr.psu.edu/cfs online.