German engineering triumphs in American solar decathlon

Darmstadt took first prize today in the Solar Decathlon for universities. It was the only entry from Germany among the 20 competing schools. We showed their entry in a blog earlier this week.

Here's what the official Decathlon site said about the winning entry, "First Place: Technische Universität Darmstadt. This team from Germany came to the Solar Decathlon hoping to have an impact on people, and it's safe to say that this happened. Darmstadt won the Architecture, Lighting, and Engineering contests. The Architecture Jury said the house pushed the envelope on all levels and is the type of house they came to the Decathlon hoping to see. The Lighting Jury loved the way this house glows at night. The Engineering Jury gave this team an innovation score that was as high as you could go, and said nobody did the integration of the PV system any better. Darmstadt was one of seven teams to score a perfect 100 points in the Energy Balance contest. All week, long lines of people waited to get into this house."

Darmstadt had almost 1025 points. The other top finishers: 2-University of Maryland with nearly 1000 3-University of Santa Clara with almost 980. That's their entry in today's picture. 4-Penn State 975 5-University of Madrid, Spain 946 6-Georgia Tech 945 7-University of Colorado, who'd won the first two decathlons, 943.

My hometown favorite, University of Missouri-Rolla, finished in 11th place, 869 points.

The U.S. Department of Energy was among the sponsors of this contest which was begun in 2002, repeated in 2005 and again this year.