Spreading the Sunshine: SCU Students to Build a Solar House on Campus
James Bickford, a junior in mechanical engineering, sees Santa Clara’s competition in the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon as a bit of a Cinderella story. The Solar Decathlon is an international architectural and engineering competition where competing colleges and universities build solar powered homes and operate them for three weeks on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
As the last school invited to participate, the Santa Clara students were a bit late and had fewer in-house resources than their bigger rivals.
But with the “magic” of the University’s support (including partial funding, faculty advisors, and resources), outside grants, and Silicon Valley innovation mixed with plenty of hard work and determination, Santa Clara could just end this story happily ever after.
“We’re the underdog of this competition,” said Bickford, the student project manager for the competition. “But we are definitely here to do the best we can.”
That’s no small feat. The team needs to raise part of the estimated $650,000 needed to complete the project. And the students must construct a fully functional home powered only by solar energy. Then they have to transport the abode cross-country to the competition in Washington, D.C., in the fall. The home will be judged in 10 areas including aesthetics, engineering, and its ability to produce enough solar electricity for multiple tasks. Excess electricity will be used to run a small electric car. Organizers of the competition expect upwards of 20,000 visitors to tour the house during the contest.
The team will earn points for the number of miles that the car runs on electricity generated by the house. The house needs to remain at a near-constant temperature in the unpredictable fall weather of the nation’s capital, and among other things, team members must also be able to cook, clean, shower, do laundry, and watch television using only power generated by their home.
The team plans to start construction of the 650-square-foot house by the main entrance of the University by this spring.
The construction of the solar house also fits in with the school’s Jesuit identity, notes Bickford. “From my perspective, being in the school of engineering at a Jesuit university, the goal is to work toward social justice using technology. I think that’s what the Solar Decathlon does.”
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