Australians win top prize in Solar Decathlon China 2013
by: STEPHEN BROOK From: The Australian August 12, 2013 10:52AM
Illawarra Flame House created by University of Wollongong Pic : Supplied Source: Supplied
A 1960s SUBURBAN fibro home transformed to achieve net-zero energy consumption has won the world's biggest energy competition for its team of Australian students.
The Illawarra Flame fibro house, a joint venture between the University of Wollongong and Illawarra TAFE, beat 19 other entries from around the globe, to triumph in Solar Decathlon China 2013 finals, held in the city of Datong, 300km west of Beijing.
The Team UOW Australia house, which students transformed to reduce its energy consumption to zero, scored 957.6 of a possible 1000 points, beating teams from South China University of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology from Sweden.
"We see the need; we are trying to make a difference. We are not sitting around waiting for politicians to do something - we are making a change ourselves," project manager Lloyd Niccol, a cadet engineer with BlueScope Steel at the Port Kembla Steel Works, told The Australian.
"The energy here in Datong has been electric," said Dianne Murray, director of TAFE Illawarra. "This has been a huge opportunity to show the world how far advanced the Illawarra is when it comes to clever, sustainable construction and design and to establish our region as a global leader in this field."
The house was the only entry in the competition to take an existing home and make it energy efficient: increasing its airtightness, enlarging windows, installing vertical gardens, a photovoltaic thermal air system and a rainwater harvester.
A team of 30 students from the University of Wollongong and the adjacent TAFE Illawarra, schooled in the disciplines of engineering, architecture, design and construction, supported by a network from industry and academia, first retrofitted the house on a site in Wollongong, before disassembling it and shipping it to China.
Planning took two years but the home was rebuilt on site in 12 days after a six-week journey across the Pacific.
"I am so proud of the tremendous effort that our students have put in over the past two years. From the initial planning, through detailed design, and then finally the construction of our house in both Wollongong and China, I cannot describe how much it means for the team to be awarded first place in the Solar Decathlon China 2013," said Professor Paul Cooper, the Team UOW Faculty adviser and director of the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre at the University of Wollongong.
More than 30,000 locals over the course of the event will visit the home.
The house, dubbed the Illawarra Flame house, shows existing houses can be made energy efficient and also comfortable to live in.
"We have around eight million homes existing in Australia," Niccol said. "The problem is our residential housing sector contributes 13 per cent of our carbon emissions and we want to try and retrofit our existing homes, which are probably using far more energy than they need to."
Each Australian house leaks about 14 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, the same amount expended by a car driving from east to west across the continent.
And by 2050 our population will have aged with the houses, with many empty-nesters looking for smaller-scale living that the suburban fibro provides. "We don't want to sit in our ivory tower and design something that can't be done," Niccol said.
The Illawarra Flame house will be dissasembled again and shipped to its new home, the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre at the University of Wollongong's Innovation Campus.
"There it will be opened regularly to the public, and become a part of the SBRC Living Laboratory program," Professor Cooper said. "Importantly, it will provide not only a test bed for new sustainable building technologies, but a vehicle to accelerate the adoption of sustainable retrofit technologies for homes in Australia and overseas."
About Solar Decathlon Photo of crowds of people at an outdoor event. In the center is an airplane hangar. Enlarge image Photo of an air strip with mountains in the background. Enlarge image
Solar Decathlon 2013 will be held at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. (Top photo courtesy of the Orange County Great Park Corp.)
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an award-winning program that challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.
The first Solar Decathlon was held in 2002; the competition has since occurred biennially in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011.
The next event will take place Oct. 3–13, 2013, at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. The competition houses will be open to visitors on eight days over two weekends. Public hours will be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily: .. continued .. http://www.solardecathlon.gov/about.html
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