The winner of this year’s Solar Decathlon was just announced today and for the second year in a row, it’s the Germans.
If you haven’t been following this amazing event, the Solar Decathlon is amazing and probably the only fun thing that comes out of the Department of Energy (mind, I said fun, not ‘not nerdy’). Every 2 years, 20 schools from around the world challenge each other to build the most energy and water self-sufficient house. Participants build the homes in their own communities, disassemble them, and rebuild them on the Capitol Mall for the week-long event where they are judged on 10 categories:
- Architecture — 100 points
- Market Viability — 100 points
- Engineering — 100 points
- Lighting Design — 75 points
- Communications — 75 points
- Comfort Zone — 100 points
- Hot Water — 100 points
- Appliances — 100 points
- Home Entertainment — 100 points
- Net Metering — 150 points
If you are in D.C., go down to the Mall this weekend and check them out. If you aren’t you should check out the pictures and the website.
As Adam Siegel argues at Get Energy Smart Now!!!, Germans had it easy due to the impressive renewable-friendly policies* that they are subject to at home. Feed-in Tariffs especially have been responsible for rapidly increasing the market viability of solar panels (feed-in tariffs force utilities to pay a fixed rate above market price for unused power produced by renewable energy). This gave the German team an incentive to cover their house with solar panels, whereas teams from the United States had to decide whether to prioritize solar production (”Net Metering”) or cost of the house (”Market Viability”).
It is time to set up similar renewable energy incentives in the United States to promote decentralize energy production, put more money in our pockets, create millions of domestic jobs, and reduce our carbon emissions.
* Check out this map of solar energy potential in the United States and Germany. It doesn’t make any sense for Germany to be the world leader in solar energy production when we have so much more potential than they do.
