Once just a glimmer in our eyes, the 2009 Department of Energy Solar Decathlon (SD09) competition is now upon us. In October, twenty university teams from around the world will bring their high-tech houses to the National Mall in Washington DC to show off their skills in super-energy-efficient home design, as well as their ability to pull off a massively difficult project.
Naturally, most of the of the focus of the SD09 is on the end product; much has been written about the technical advances, the architectural innovation, and the systems engineering it takes to power a home only from the sun. However, not enough has been said about the sheer difficulty and perseverance it takes to organize, fund, and execute on these two-year projects. This is not to mention the extremely detailed and lengthy documentation requirements imposed by the competition.
Add to that, about 99% of the students participating in the project have essentially zero real-world experience in architecture, industrial design, or engineering. Just getting a house to the competition is a huge undertaking “worthy of recognition in the annals of Illini order.” In my professorial experience, we reward students for doing things 90% right – the “lowest A wins” disease. However, in real life, 90% is failure. This project has been a great way to teach students execution – a skill that will make them extremely valuable to their future employers (note, future employers reading this blog, please be prepared to pay for this skill).
The project started at the end of 2007 with the writing of the entry proposal. This is the UIUC’s second time in the Solar Decathlon, so we took few “lessons learned” away from the first competition. However, in addition to some faculty turnover, very few students remain from our 2007 entry, meaning for practical purposes, we were starting from scratch, again – no design and no money. This is just as well, since in my experience students do not like to simply take the old design and improve on it – they much prefer to start over and earn the knowledge for themselves and really “own” the design. While it is sometimes frustrating to watch them do everything the hard way, I also know that tragically this is the only way we seem to learn.
After we were accepted into the competition, Prof. Mark Taylor took the faculty responsibility of project management and initiated a semester-long design studio including many “charrettes” (which, as an engineer, as far as I can tell a charrette is the sophisticated term for brainstorming). The architecture students produced three concepts for design, downselecting to the “Gable House,” which became the concept that is now built and functioning. It has been a pleasure getting to know the architecture students and faculty. They are easily identified by their stylish clothing and their Macs.
Determined to let engineering have its fair share of influence, we organized a two-semester sequence of classes that addressed the mechanical and electrical aspects of the design. Although it took some effort, we were able to get dogs and cats to live together. That is, the architects and engineers to actually sat down and found a common language, ironing out a large number of issues before we went to construction. I would have to say that the teamwork of the students is one of the most gratifying outcomes of the project. This was not always easy. I can remember writing e-mail messages to the effect “Dear John and Suzy, every day for three weeks we have needed you two to talk about X. Please schedule a TODAY. I know you are from opposite side of Green St., but let me assure you there are no border agents or paperwork to deal with.” You can stand up in class and teach teamwork, it just can’t be learned that way.
The house design, along with numerous pictures, videos, press releases, and commentary are posted at our website, http://www.solardecathlon.uiuc.edu. Generally speaking, we opted to design to the German “Passivhaus” standard. Katrin Klingenberg, leader of the U.S. branch of the PassivHaus Institute (which happens to be in Urbana), was kind to work with the student on the building envelope design. Based on this design, the heating and cooling cost of the house is about $75/year, in Urbana, one of the most hostile environments for passive house design. Although we don’t recommend it, the house can be heated with a candle, or maybe small hair dryer. Coupled with our 9.2-kW photovoltaic array and extremely efficient electrical system, the Gable House will produce far more energy than it consumes.
At long last, the house is essentially complete and ready to load for the competition. Although I did my fair share as a principal investigator, quite frankly Prof. Taylor and the students have done a remarkable job. From my point of view, the project has been pretty much on autopilot for this calendar year. Lately, my roles have been spend the last of the money and try not to interfere.
Over 100 students participated on the team in the last two years. Despite fear of leaving someone out, I’ll congratulate a few specific students on their efforts – particularly the most recent efforts that have finished off the house. As the Pareto principle says, the last 20% of the job is 80% of the work. One of our leading students is Joe Simon, a graduate student in architecture. Joe is definitely the guy to give the ball to in the big game. Most of my e-mail to Joe was “Good job, you’re the man.” Tim Moran, Ryan Abendroth, Philip Dimick, and Camden Greenlee were others from south campus that I could always rely on. Usually, I gave them at least several hours notice before I needed something really important.
From engineering, Sairaj Dhople, Mark Adams, Charles Murray, Stanton Cady, Alan Mellovitz, and Jon Ehlmann did amazing jobs. Sairaj (a former TI intern), Charles, and Stanton built the solar array, which was either the first or second out of twenty teams to be given the green light from the competition. Alan and Mark were key players in the HVAC and water heating categories, both of which have huge impact on performance.
We hope you can support us in the competition. Realizing now that I pretty much stole this pep talk from Hoosiers, my message for the team is “We can’t guarantee first place, but we can guarantee a first-place effort. If you do that, in my book you’re going to be winners.”
Professor Patrick Chapman, Ph.D.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
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