The Penn Stater Magazine

New Solar House in the Works

August 28, 2009 at 3:15 pm Tina Hay 1 comment

I stopped out to Innovation Park (actually to a big field just behind Innovation Park) this afternoon to see how construction is coming along on Penn State’s entry in this year’s Solar Decathlon.

The decathlon, held every other year, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. It pits student teams from various schools against each other to see who can build the best solar house, with the houses displayed on the national mall in Washington, D.C., in October. Penn State finished fourth in 2007 with an entry called MorningStar—which you can still see; it now sits next to the Centre County Visitors Center across from Beaver Stadium.

This year’s entry is called Natural Fusion. It’s small, as you can see in the photo above—the competition requirements stipulate that its “footprint” be no more than 800 sq. ft.—and it will be entirely powered by solar energy.

Here are a couple of photos from this afternoon’s visit. The first is of Dan Sutton (an architecture major from Evans City, Pa.) and Kyle Macht ’09 Eng (a recent grad who is the team leader) installing a window on the rear of the house:

And here is a stack of solar panels waiting to be installed. They’re made of a kind of solar cell called CIGS (short for copper indium gallium selenide).

Much of the material for the house has either been donated or sold to the students at a discount; the team has worked with Penn State’s fundraising staff to identify corporate entities who can support the effort.

In this next shot, Brian Goodykoontz ’09, ’09g explains the solar-energy system that’s supplying power for the construction process. Brian graduated in May with a bachelor’s and master’s in architectural engineering and is the construction project manager.

And this last shot is of Dan Sutton, whose hardhat sports the logo of this year’s team.

The overall crew—numbering about 150 students—is currently racing to get the house finished by mid- to late-September. A big target date is Sept. 25, when they’ll be offering tours of the house to the public—and when actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. will be in town to see the house and give a public talk.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: Campus events, College of Engineering, Penn State students, University Park campus. Tags: Brian Goodykoontz, CIGS, copper indium gallium selenide, Dan Sutton, Ed Begley Jr., Innovation Park, Kyle Macht, Natural Fusion, Solar Decathlon, solar energy.