U-Mass. Team Gets A Chance To Shine
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 – Emma Green-Beach has been waiting more than two years for her day in the sun.
This week she and her classmates from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will get their chance to shine in the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Solar Decathlon.”
The Solar Decathlon is an international competition to design and build the most comfortable and energy-efficient solar-powered house. Teams from the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Spain built their homes on the National Mall this week, nestling a solar village between the Washington Monument and Capitol Hill.
“Renewable energy sources are the way of the future, they’re going to have to happen,” said Green-Beach, a Martha’s Vineyard native. “Some people want to hold onto the old ways as long as possible but it just has to happen.”
The Decathlon runs through Oct. 15, with an overall winner announced on Oct. 14. Throughout the week awards will be given out in 10 categories such as architecture, livability, and ability to power lights and appliances. The houses are open for public viewing.
“Every one of these houses is a marvel of engineering and design, and a model of creativity and innovation,” Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said at the opening ceremony Thursday. “This competition really is improving and enlarging the ways we develop and apply solar energy technology.”
Green-Beach, a senior, was working for Habitat for Humanity during her sophomore year when she was approached by Professor Gerald Lemay, head of the UMass team, to be a liaison between Habitat and the Solar Decathlon project. After the competition the house will be donated to Habitat for Humanity to house displaced Hurricane Katrina victims.
Green-Beach, a biology student, said she supports renewable energy like solar or the Cape Wind project. Her role involved more organizing than engineering but all 24 students on the UMass team helped construct the house.
With its recycled yellow vinyl siding and conventional design the one bedroom, one level UMass house stands out among the rest for its simplicity rather than glittering space-age aesthetics.
“We wanted it to look like a house and not stick out on the block, not be that ‘weird house that I think runs off the sun,’” Green-Beach said.
UMass construction manager Tim Lyden said he hopes the event, and the UMass house in particular, will raise awareness of the technology that is currently available.
“None of this stuff out here is laboratory science or rocket science,” Professor Lemay said. “It’s all available.”
The UMass team raised about $75,000 for the house and had many materials like windows and floor tiles, donated. BP Solar sold the solar panels at half price.
Beginning this year the competition will be held every two years. Green-Beach hopes to come back for the 2007 Decathlon as a volunteer alumna. By then the team hopes solar power will be more prevalent.
“If everybody lived like our culture does, we’d need two or three more worlds,” Professor Lemay said. “And they’re kind of hard to come by.”
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