UI solar house shines with second-place showing

WASHINGTON – A University of Illinois solar house that took second place in an international competition will have a high-profile address when it returns to campus.

The 800-square-foot "Gable House" designed by students will be sited southeast of the I Hotel and Conference Centers on St. Mary's Road, pending final UI approval, team members said this week.

The solar-powered house placed second Friday in the Solar Decathlon sponsored by the Department of Energy, which challenged students to design, build and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar home.

The house was built on campus and moved to the National Mall in Washington this month for the contest, which drew 20 teams from select universities around the world.

"We are very happy. We put a lot of work into it," said project manager Joe Simon, graduate student in architecture and business administration.

In a tight finish, the UI team finished with 897.3 points, just 11 points behind Germany. Team California took third.

The UI's previous entry, in 2007, finished ninth.

The UI had moved into first place Thursday, but Team Germany squeaked ahead by taking first in the biggest category, net metering, which measured the homes' energy use. The UI house produces four times the energy it needs, and was awarded 137 out of a possible 150 points, but Germany received a perfect score.

Germany's house, a two-story cube covered with black solar panels, used an 18-kilowatt solar energy system, which outproduced the UI's smaller 9-kilowatt system, Simon said.

"In terms of the actual performance of the house, we feel we did extremely well," he said.

The UI house took first in three of the 10 categories – hot water, appliances and home entertainment.

"I think they did a remarkable job," said Joe Verrengia, spokesman for the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

While Germany's house stood out because it produced so much solar power – generating a surplus even during three days of rain – the UI house won big marks for its energy-efficiency, he said.

"That's where we can make the biggest immediate difference as a country" on energy conservation, he said. "It's not just covering your house with solar panels and trying to make more electricity. It's trying to make clean energy and doing more with it."

UI team members said they wanted to prove a house could use the latest in energy technology and still have the feel of a real home. The exterior, which evokes a Midwestern farmhouse, features siding made of 100-year-old reclaimed barn wood and a traditional gable roof, as well as high-efficiency solar panels.

The house can be heated with a single hair-dryer. The walls, metal roof and floor have nearly 12 inches of high-performance insulation. Laminated bamboo, which is renewable and stronger than other wood, was used for structural elements. A custom hot-water system heat exchanger helps heat and cool the air in the house. High-efficiency lights and kitchen appliances reduce electric demand.

The house, which has a more traditional style than most entries, received lower marks in subjective categories such as architecture and market viability. But that's "kind of in the eye of the beholder," said Cam Greenlee, student leader of the UI's architecture team.

The UI house was the second most affordable in the competition and still placed second, said Mark Taylor, professor of architecture and a team adviser.

"We believe our home could penetrate a very large market in the state of Illinois and the Midwest," Greenlee said.

The UI project totaled about $600,000, including in-kind donations and travel costs for 20 students attending the competition in Washington, said engineering Professor Patrick Chapman, another team adviser. Each team was given a $100,000 seed grant from the Department of Energy, and the UI team received $200,000 from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.

More than 200 people worked on the house, mostly from the College of Engineering and the College of Fine and Applied Arts.

Students designed the house and hired Homeway Homes to build the shell and install some drywall, electrical and plumbing systems, Chapman said. Students finished the interior and installed mechanical equipment, the solar array and other systems.

All of the houses used components that are commercially available, Verrengia said.

"It's the design and integration that makes the difference," he said.

The houses will remain on the Mall through Sunday. The UI house will then be returned to Champaign.

A member of the student team, Tim Moran, works for I Hotel owner Peter Fox, who agreed to put the house near a pond there, Chapman said. Other sites suggested by the university were "far off the main campus, where people would rarely see it," he said.

Fox said grants from the Department of Natural Resources through the Prairie Rivers Network will cover the cost of installing the house and prairie-style landscaping. He hopes it will be an attraction for hotel guests.

The 2007 house remains "stuck" at a Chicago museum that had promised to pay to ship it back to Champaign, he said. That arrangement fell through, but the Orpheum Children's Science Museum hopes to win a grant to pay the transportation cost and use the house as a display, he said.

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