Thoughts on Solar

UPDATE: The final tallies are in and our hometown team placed sixth overall and tied for the lead in two categories: Energy Balance and Hot Water efficiency.  Congratulations to all who participated in this competition - you make us proud!

The Solar Decathlon is a tremendously cool event that allows collegiate teams from around the world to show just what innovative, energy-efficient design looks like - and boy can these kids think outside the box!

Here in Pasadena we admit to being a bit partial to our hometown heroes over at Caltech (as in, the California Institute of Technology, in case you didn’t know).  Teaming up with architecture students from SCI-Arc (as in the Southern California Institute of Architecture, in case you didn’t know), the combined team’s entry - called CHIP,  for Compact, Hyper-Insulated Prototype - features insulation on the outside of the building and some other very clever design features, including - of course - solar panels.

Check out this video “walkthrough":

The Decathlon starts September 23 and runs through October 2 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  We can only hope that the folks who work in Washington and have a hand in setting national energy policy will take the time to become educated about the possibilities created by innovative thinking regarding our long-term energy needs.

We will be following the status of the SCI-Arc/Caltech team and will post updates as they become available.  Go team, GO!