Penn State to Compete in 2009 Solar Decathlon

The National Mall in Washington, DC during the previous Solar Decathlon in 2007. Credit: Kaye Evans-Lutterodt-Solar DecathlonFor three weeks in October, a team of Penn State students will be part of the world’s largest home show.

The students will be competing for the second time in the biennial Solar Decathlon, where their Natural Fusion solar house will be one of 20 on display on the National Mall in Washington, DC. A half million people are expected to tour the houses beginning October 9, but more than one billion will hear about the contest. In 2007, Penn State’s debut Solar Decathlon house, MorningStar Pennsylvania, finished in fourth place.

Led by Jeffrey Brownson, assistant professor in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, 16 students serve as project managers and more than 160 students have been involved with Natural Fusion at some point over the past two years.

“The solar house is a great way to develop real-life skills,” says Brownson. “In my opinion, this is improperly defined as a student project. It’s more along the lines of an enterprise. You have all these different skill sets that are each managing sections of a larger structure, but each section is its own project.”

One of the goals of Natural Fusion was to make the project compelling to average citizens. “We want to show them that these technologies are not out of their reach,” Brownson says. “They might be on the front end of what’s on the market, but everything in the house, from the electronics to the materials, must be commercially available.”

Collaboration with industry has been vital for the Natural Fusion project. The first, and perhaps most successful, alliance between the Penn State group and industry was with Bayer MaterialScience, LLC in Pittsburgh. “A team of students went to the company with pitches on the Natural Fusion project, and we met with several of the directors,” says Brownson. “They showed us opportunities. They took ideas of ours and amplified them. Over the course of the year it has developed into an incredible relationship, and we’re achieving the results we wanted to achieve in terms of energy performance and insulation. And Bayer sees this house as strongly influenced by their products, so it is beneficial for Bayer to promote their involvement during the competition on the National Mall.”

Bayer MaterialScience recommended other eco-friendly companies such as Phase Change Energy Solutions, Inc. (PCES) as partners in Natural Fusion. PCES, based in Asheboro, North Carolina, is using residue from biodiesel that is packaged in a way that it can be put behind drywall and act as a thermal storage system.

Rendering of the Penn State Natural Fusion solar home.Professional Building Systems, Inc. in Middleburg provided the module home for the project. “Module home building is a very strong industry in Pennsylvania,” says Brownson, “and we wanted to show that sustainable qualities can be brought into a module building.” For the Natural Fusion project, using a module home added to the overall green effort because it minimizes the waste and energy used in building a traditional house.

Carlisle Syntec stepped forward with a product that the project team found would work best with their green roofing system. And these are just a sample of the industries that have participated in the Natural Fusion project.

“This project is a great selling point for the bridge between academia and industry,” says Brownson. “We find that these industrial relations are also developing into research opportunities. We have a great network on campus to connect these industries with researchers.”

For more information
www.solar.psu.edu