Solar Decathlon Solar Decathlon The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Decathlon is a collegiate competition, comprising 10 contests, that challenges student teams to design and build highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy. The winners will be those teams that best blend design architectural and engineering excellence with innovation, market potential, building efficiency, and smart energy production. In the summer of 2018, DOE merged its two student building design competitions into one Solar Decathlon competition. The combined competition features two tracks, the Design Challenge and the Build Challenge. The Solar Decathlon provides a hands-on experience and unique training that
Solar Decathlon in Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California – it was the first Solar Decathlon to take place outside Washington D.C., and was won by Vienna University of Technology (Team Austria). The seventh Solar Decathlon was held October 8 – 18, 2015, also at the Orange County Great Park. Stevens Institute of Technology was the overall winner. This was their third Solar Decathlon competition. The eighth Solar Decathlon in the U.S. was held October 5–15, 2017, in Denver, Colorado, at the 61st & Peña Station on the University of Colorado A line commuter rail connecting Denver International Airport to downtown