Department of Energy showcases its latest high-tech solar homes-designed and built by college students. The idea behind the competition is not only taking the prize money home, but to make the solar powered homes more efficient The point of the event is to illustrate that ‘solar’ no longer means ‘hippy hangout,’ ‘ugly box’ or ‘Spartan shack.’ The homes are gorgeous on the inside, and, usually, on the outside. (Rules limit the house to 800 square feet, not counting porches, patios, and gardens; that, and the necessity to get them to Washington on trucks, each finalist team $100,000 to defray the transportation costs.
These houses are completely ‘off the grid’-they’re not connected to the utility companies. Yet the teams have to live like normal Americans. Using only power from the sun, they have to keep the TV on six hours a day, run the computer five hours a day, cook meals, wash dishes, do two loads of laundry a week, take four 15-minute hot showers a week, keep the temperature between 70 and 78 degrees, maintain 40 to 60 percent humidity, and recharge an electric two-seater car (that’s the ‘getting around’ part).
In short, they have to prove that living on solar power does not involve sacrifice.
