Photo of a crowd of people on Decathlete Way, the main walkway between the Solar Decathlon 2009 houses.

U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon

Bookmark and Share

Energy Balance Contest

(100 points)

For the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011, each team house was equipped with a bidirectional utility meter that enabled competition organizers to measure the net energy a house produced or consumed over the course of the competition.

In the Energy Balance Contest, a team received full points for producing at least as much energy as its house needed, thus achieving a net energy consumption of zero during contest week. This was accomplished by balancing production and consumption.