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Go shopping for your solar dream home

By Heather Clancy | Oct 2, 2009 |

If you’re looking for ideas about how to create your solar dream house or about the design principles that might apply in your community a decade from now, you’ll want to peek at the Web site for the Solar Decathlon 2009. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the projects will be featured on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., from Oct. 9 to Oct. 18. (There are a couple of dark dates, so check the schedule if you are local.)
This is actually a competition: 20 teams of college and university students from the United States and Canada are challenged with designing, building and operating the “most attractive, effective and energy efficient” solar homes. Here’s a page listing the 2009 entries.
This is as photo of the Santa Clara University project that won the 2007 competition.

This is a photo of the Santa Clara University project that won the 2007 competition.

What sort of stuff can you expect to see if you visit in person or via the Web coverage?

I chatted about this with Chris Schairbaum, director of energy technology strategy for Texas Instruments, a Solar Decathlon sponsor company. TI is sponsoring the University of Illinois team, which is the alma mater of TI’s legendary Jack Kilby. The house they’ve built is called the Gable House, which you can preview in this photo gallery.

In addition, here’s some video that has been produced about the home.

TI’s interest in solar, of course, is extensive. The company participates in several different ways, creating controller chips and components that are being used in solar inverters and converters. The company has several products that are applicable to this particular project including the MSP430 Solar Energy Harvesting Development Tool, the Piccolo and Delfino microcontrollers and the Renewable Energy Developers Kit.

Schairbaum says one of TI’s big pushes is to help its customers get more energy and more efficiency out of each panel. It participates in the Decathlon because the project offers it an opportunity to test new concepts.

Of course, there are other 19 other entries in this competition. I’ve also received some advance publicity about the BeauSoleil team from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Theirs is a mobile unit designed to stand up against hurricane-force winds and built with the lessons of Katrina in mind. Here’s a video about their entry.

 
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Heather Clancy

Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist in the New York area with more than 20 years experience covering the high-tech industry. She has a passion for green IT and regularly covers business technology issues and trends. Her articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times.

Clancy previously was editor at Computer Reseller News, the leading B2B trade publication covering news and trends about high-tech channels of distribution. In that role, she set editorial direction and led a staff of close to 30.

While at CRN, Clancy was the featured speaker on dozens of video netseminars, covering a wide range of topics including Software as a Service, managed services, convergence, IT security, mobile computing and high-tech channel program strategy. She has moderated numerous conference panel discussions and roundtables, and frequently was rated the top session facilitator at CMP Media's XChange conferences.

Prior to joining CRN, Clancy was a business writer with United Press International, where she covered everything from corporate mergers to the early days of the high-tech industry. She holds a B.A. in English literature from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and is a graduate of the Stanford Professional Publishing Course.

Heather Clancy

I’m sure cynical investigative reporters would discover that my lifestyle is about as sustainable as the average American, which is to say not so much. But I try. Really hard. Honest. And writing publicly about what the high-tech industry is actually doing to get greener or more sustainable is one way I figure I can contribute more meaningfully to the effort. I’m also a big OMG-kind-of-fan of smart leadership, which is why the goodly folks who publish this blog let me go on about this topic and why I am always on the hunt for forward-looking business management ideas.

My freelance hours are focused on looking for topics for my blogs, GreenTech Pastures and Business Brains, and writing articles for mainstream publication. I also contribute articles and blogs about VARs, resellers and systems integrators that deploy IT solutions for media company Tech Target. Occasionally, I’ll pop up at an industry conference in some sort of speaking capacity. In cases where a speaking engagement involves a sponsor that may be covered in this blog, this will be disclosed in coverage as appropriate.

My consulting activities include a relationship with SWOT Management Group, a firm in New Jersey that provides high-tech channel strategy and sales engagement insight to high-tech vendors. In the event that my commentary (in written, audio or video form) mentions a company for which I have provided consulting advice, I will disclose that fact. However, there is no connection between these projects and the topics that I’m covering in my blog.

Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an author and independent analyst who tracks the impact of information technology on management and markets. Joe is also SOA community manager for ebizQ, and speaks frequently on Enterprise 2.0 and SOA topics at industry events and Webcasts. He also serves as lead analyst and author of Evans Data Corp.'s highly regarded bi-annual SOA/Web Services and Web 2.0 surveys. Joe writes a regular column for Database Trends & Applications, and has authored numerous research reports in partnership with Unisphere Research for user groups such as SHARE, Oracle Applications Users Group, and International DB2 Users Group. In a previous life, Joe served as director of the Administrative Management Society (AMS), an international professional association dedicated to advancing knowledge within the IT and business management fields.

Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an independent consultant and editor. Joe has performed project work for the following companies in the IT marketspace: IBM, Systinet/HP, Teradata. He has performed project work for the following organizations in partnership with Unisphere Research (Unisphere Media): IBM, Oracle Corp., International Oracle Users Group, Oracle Applications Users Group, Professional Association for SQL Server, International DB2 Users Group, International Sybase Users Group.
Business Brains focuses on management issues that revolve around the key question: How do I make my business, family, and coworkers smarter? The blog examines the management issues facing a variety of businesses and debunks the technology you need to know

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