For the past four months universities all over the world have been submitting proposals for the Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE) 2012 competition in Madrid, Spain. The inscription period has now closed with 33 teams out of 47 going through to the final selection stage.
The 2012 competition marks the first time universities from four continents have shown interest in participating, with 73% of the requests for information coming from Europe, 12% from America, 9% from Africa and 6% from Asia. The 20 universities that will go on to compete will be named at the end of December.
Competition proposals must outline plans to construct a self-sufficient house that runs exclusively on solar energy. The participating solar houses will be marked according to ten categories including, architecture, engineering and construction, solar systems, comfort conditions, usage, communications and social media, industrialization and market viability, innovation and sustainability. The winning university will be the one that obtains the best accumulated score across the board.
SDE is organized by the Ministry of Public Works and the collaboration of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The event is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the collaborative efforts of the Madrid City Council and IDAE.
