Tapping into the power of the sun
Solar Decathlon asks students to design, build energy-efficient dwelling
Students from Ontario’s Carleton University, Algonquin College and Queen’s University have joined forces to enter a prestigious U.S. competition that will challenge their skills, creativity and ingenuity while they build a solar-powered house of the future.
Called the Solar Decathlon, the decade-old competition, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, attracts dozens of applicants worldwide every two years. Twenty are chosen to compete over 10 days in 10 categories from energy balance and architecture to market appeal and home entertainment. The winning team will be the one judged to best blend affordability, consumer appeal and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.
“It’s pretty exciting,” says Chris Baldwin, Carleton’s student project manager. “It builds the image of the schools and the programs involved and it gives us a lot of experience as well.”
The group, called Team Ontario, has spent upwards of three years preparing its proposal, but now the real work begins. The 50 or so students involved have 18 months to finalize a modular design for a single-storey home of about 1,000 square feet and then build it before taking it all down, shipping it on a flatbed truck for 4,500 kilometres and spending about a week putting it back together at the competition site in California.
Depending on their level of involvement, Carleton faculty adviser Cynthia Cruickshank estimates they “could easily spend at least 30 hours per week on the project and then during the summer time, it’ll be at least 60 hours a week.”
The aim of the competition is to bring clean-energy products and technology into the mainstream, educating both students and the public along the way.
Baldwin, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering graduate student with an interest in solar thermal technology, says the main focus of Team Ontario’s design “is to create a house that a starter family could use, young adults with one or two young kids, that could be affordable for the next generation.”
Called Aurora House, the concept plan calls for a home that can transform from a bachelor pad to a onebedroom and then a two-bedroom home as the family grows. Although the design of the house may change over the next several months, it has a contemporary, open-concept look that takes advantage of natural ventilation, photovoltaic panels, superinsulated walls and floors and rainwater recovery. Automated windows and shades will adjust as needed to either block or allow in the sun’s rays.
The group aims to include technologies that exist now but may not be widely available. They’ll determine the most efficient systems and materials for insulation, hot water, appliances, home entertainment and stormwater use, says Cruickshank, an assistant professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department.
“In the process, students will have applied their classroom knowledge to create viable, real-world solutions for energy-efficient housing — and inspired the public to demand more from the next generation of homes.”
This is the first time the Team Ontario institutions have been accepted, although they applied for the 2011 competition, and the group is one of just two Canadian teams participating (the other is a returning group from the University of Calgary). It combines students from architecture, skilled trades, engineering and business across all three institutions. Although some of the students may graduate before the competition takes place, they tend to stay with the project, says Cruickshank.
“It’s one of those projects where once you start, it’s really hard not to continue with it.”
Why the partnership of the three schools?
“Queen’s and Carleton have been collaborating for quite some time on different solar projects to begin with, so it was a natural fit,” says Cruickshank. “And Algonquin, they are very good for their practical experience. It’s just a really nice fit with a lot of expertise around the table for the three of us to be all together.”
They’re still figuring out where they’ll build the home, she says, but they’re hoping to utilize Algonquin’s Perth campus and start construction by January.
“It’s really a chance to get your hands dirty, get to think outside the box, to really challenge yourself to do something,” says Cruickshank.
“It’s very addictive.”