Student-built solar house has 'elemental' appeal
Last fall, 20 universities from five countries -
each with a self-sustaining solar house prototype
- competed in the biannual Solar Decathlon at
the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Teams chosen to compete received $100,000
seed money from the Department of Energy, the
sponsoring agency. The Urbana campus' entry
was dubbed "elementhouse."
More than 200 students and faculty from
disciplines ranging from architecture to
engineering to communications collaborated
on the Urbana prototype. They competed
in 10 categories, including energy efficiency
and production, architectural integrity, livability
and aesthetic appeal.
"I got a chance to work with architecture and
industrial design [students] - people who bring
a different set of skills and have a different set
of limitations" said Ben Barnes, a mechanical
engineering master's degree student and
elementhouse energy-team leader.
Elementhouse combined several innovative ways
to conserve energy, cleverly avoiding expending
solar energy to heat water, instead using heat from
the air conditioning, "simultaneously cooling the
space and heating water by moving heat rather
than generating heat," Barnes said. A system
of coils radiated heat, replacing a conventional
furnace that wastes energy in the process of
moving air through
the home.
The house proper
consists of three
12-foot by 16-foot
self-contained
"modules" that
can be added or
subtracted depending upon the
amount of living space required
or desired. The Urbana team built
the structure on campus, then
disassembled and reassembled it in
Washington. This flexibility helped
elementhouse win first place in the
market viability category. Although
the team placed ninth overall,
elementhouse also won first in the
heating-humidity control category.
A commercial model of
elementhouse would cost around
$160,000 - $60,000 for the solar
panels alone.
After the D.C. competition,
elementhouse traveled to Chicago
where it was displayed at the
Greenbuild 2007 conference and
received attention in the media.
By Amanda Cornish '09, Office for University Relations student writer
