May 24, 2005: Students Compete In National Solar Home Building Competition
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A team of more than 50 students from the University of Michigan is building a 700-square-foot solar-powered house using commonly available materials that can handle the basic power needs of a small home, as well as a small car. By fall, they'll have to move the house to the mall in Washington, D.C., reassemble it in four days, and make it all work.
The Michigan Solar House Project is the university's entry as one of 18 competitors in the Solar Decathlon, a national solar home building contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The students will be tested on this, not in the sunny days of summer, but in October when sunny skies are harder to come by. And at the end of the weeklong contest, each team is required to have more energy stored up than they had when they started.