On October 12-20 the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2007 will take place on the National Mall in Washington D.C. In this contest, twenty teams will build solar-powered homes which will be judged in 10 categories such as the ability to provide hot water for showers, power appliances, and charge an electric vehicle.
c|net News.com has a story on and photo gallery of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Solar 7 home under construction in its Cambridge, Massachusetts campus. The 800-square-foot building is outfitted with a number of passive solar technologies to convert sunlight into usable heat and also photovoltaic cells to generate electricity. It has 24 batteries capable of storing 70 kilowatt-hours of electricity for cloudy days or night-time usage.
The gallery includes an aerial view of the “solar village” built during the 2005 contest and pictures of the home by the University of Colorado at Boulder, who won first place in the last two Solar Decathlon competitions.