2019 Solar Decathlon Challenge

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SOLAR DECATHLON - DESIGN CHALLENGE

PPI's Building & Construction Division has renewed our commitment to the new Solar Decathlon Design Challenge event for 2019, which replaces the Race to Zero student design competition which took place from 2014 to 2018.

The 2019 Solar Decathlon Design Challenge will take place at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado on April 12-14, 2019.

2019 Solar Decathlon Sponsor Letter

As we've done since 2015, PPI will be an Education Sponsor and BCD's Director of Engineering Lance MacNevin will return as a juror.

PPI encourages design teams to incorporate innovative plumbing and mechanical systems to improve the health, safety and welfare of your building occupants and the efficiency of your buildings. This includes systems such as:

  • Fire protection
  • Hot and cold water plumbing
  • Hydronic radiant heating & cooling
  • Ground source geothermal piping system

To provide inspiration and guidance, we are pleased to share the following information about the systems which are based on technologies supported by our organization and our members. Please review the following:

Results

The 2019 event had students from 45 finalist teams representing 37 collegiate institutions across the United States and around the world. Based on an objective scoring scheme through which jurors rated each of the design entries in ten contests (Decathlon), the 1st place Winners were determined for each of the six design categories. Winners were announced at the Awards Banquet on Sunday morning, including the Grand Winner - Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Virginia) for their TreeHAUS net-positive, regenerative Attached Housing design. Check out the Pictures of the 2019 competition.

NREL Facility

NREL's new Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) is conditioned with a PEX-based radiant heating and cooling system, which helped it achieve LEED® Platinum certification through USGBC. PP-R piping systems are used to circulate water through the HP Peregrine® supercomputer to help cool it, and then to transfer this waste heat into the radiant floor heating distribution system to help heat the building when needed. BCD products at work!

Note: Photo credits to "DOE Solar Decathlon"