The solar house team at Missouri University of
Science and Technology will receive $100,000 from the Department of Energy to
support the construction of a new home for the 2009 Solar
Decathlon.         

The DOE recently announced that it will fund
20 teams in anticipation of the 2009 event. Missouri S&T has built three
houses for previous competitions, which are typically held every-other-year on
the National Mall in Washington,
D.C.         

The houses are judged in 10 categories,
including architecture, engineering and energy balance. The Missouri S&T
team finished 11th overall in the 2007 Solar Decathlon, which was won by a team
from Germany’s Technische Universitat
Darmstadt.        

The 2009 house will be the fourth solar home
designed and built by Missouri S&T students. Missouri S&T and the
Universidad de Puerto Rico are the only universities that have been involved
with all four Solar
Decathlons.         

Houses built for previous competitions are
currently situated on foundations in Missouri S&T’s Solar Village. Those
houses are available for rent to
students.         

The 2009 home will be built in the Solar
Village. In the fall of 2009, it will be trucked to Washington and
reconstructed on the National Mall. After the competition, the house will find
a permanent home back in the
village.         

The houses are highly energy efficient. In the
summer, the Solar Village generates extra energy that Missouri S&T sells to
a utility
company.         

Missouri S&T’s total costs for building a
new Solar Decathlon house amount to almost $400,000 — but a large chunk of
that is budgeted for transportation to Washington and
back.         

The Missouri S&T Solar House Team will
start preparing new designs soon. Construction will begin in late 2008 or early
2009. A group of architectural studies students from the University of
Missouri-Columbia will collaborate with the Missouri S&T students on the
project.