Schneider Electric supports the Romanian team for the international challenge of solar houses
Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management, supports the Romanian students team for the international competition of sustainable house projects Solar Decathlon to be held between June and July this year at Versailles in France. EfdeN is the sole CEE-based team to compete among the 20 other qualified teams all over the world to the competition final.
2014-02-19 12:30:27
Solar Decathlon 2014 edition joins 20 teams of Europe, Asia and US and the student teams benefit of 18 months to design and build a project for the energy-efficient house. A special site in Versaille called La cite du Soleil will host the house prototips and the projects will be monitored for 18 days and analysed within 10 different categories: Architecture, Engineering and building, Solar equipments, Electric power balance, Comfort, Equipments and Operations, Communication and social responsability, Industrial and commercial potential, Innovation and Sustainability.
The Romanian team is formed by students of Technical University of Construction Bucharest, Architencture and urbanism University Ion Mincu Bucharest, Polytechnic University of Bucharest and The National School of Political Science and Public Administration (SNSPA). Scheindel electric supports their construction projects by offering technical equipments and solutions for producting solar power, electric distribution, automatic and management solutions for energy consumption by KNK standards, besides a residential station for charging electric cars.
Created by the U.S Department of Energy (DoE), the Solar Decathlon aims to challenge students from worldwide universities on 2 year long projects where they design, build and operate energy-efficient solar-powered houses. The houses are built over a ten day period in a solar village open to the public and compete in 10 contests. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. The first Solar Decathlon was held in 2002 in the US. The competition has since occurred biennially in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011 in this country. Spain hosted the first two Solar Decathlon Europe (2010 and 2012) and the competition has spread to Asia this year with the first Solar Decathlon China that took place in Datong last August.
"We face energy challenge everywhere in the world, in every country, in every city in every place" declared Aaron Davis, Chief Marketing Officer, Schneider Electric. "It's a great honor, and pleasure for Schneider electric to be sponsoring the Solar Decathlon initiatives, whereby we put together, we assemble real minds of all over the world to compete to design the most sustainable house. This is the goal of the future: we are going to be using all kinds of sustainable technology and energy design for a more sustainable, for a greener future."
Long standing sponsor of the Solar Decathlon, Schneider Electric involvement in the challenge takes various forms, ranging from technical support and donations to participation by volunteers:
At a local level, as a sponsor of the competing teams, through home automation and power distribution products, solutions integration and trainings provided by Schneider Electric local entities. Numerous teams sponsored by Schneider Electric won the competition in the past editions;
At a global level, by supplying the Organizers with the technology and engineering services required to implement the micro-grid that interconnects the houses, the organization buildings and the Electrical Vehicle charging systems to the local utility. Schneider Electric also develops real-time energy dashboards that publicly showcase the houses' energy consumption and designs Smart grid demonstration centers on site to educate the public to the smart grid and to the smart home and buildings technology.
"The Solar Decathlon depends on the valuable support of our many sponsors" said Richard King, director of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. "The sponsorship provided by Schneider Electric helps ensure that the Solar Decathlon provides a rich learning experience for the student decathletes and educates the public about the money-saving opportunities and environmental benefits presented by clean-energy products and design solutions."
Every edition of the Solar Decathlon is open free-of-charge to the public and draw from 200,000 to 350,000 visitors.