The Re_home’s shell for the 2011 Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C., was brought to its construction site by the Turner Hall Greenhouse Tuesday. The Re_home is being constructed by a team of 20 students from the University. The team is going to complete the home’s construction during the summer. They are not certain when the home will be completely finished, but it will be done sometime before the decathlon in September, said Chris Cirone, project engineer and doctoral student.

“Basically, what we’ll be doing this summer is finishing all the interior work. Things like cabinetry, painting, finishing installing lights,” Cirone said. “As far as actual engineering work, we’ll be installing all the appliances, the hot-water heater, all the kitchen appliances.”

Another major component they need to install is the PV panels, solar panels that generate electricity from solar energy. These will be connected to the house’s grid, which stores the energy produced by the panels.

“We’re connected directly to the grid so that, in times where there is low sun, we’ll probably end up pulling electricity from the grid,” he said. “When the sun’s out, we’ll be producing power, and we can actually be producing more power than we’re consuming in our house. So what we do is we sell that (extra) electricity back to the grid.”

Cirone said after the construction is done, the team can test the house’s systems and verify the appliance’s energy consumption.
“The competition requires us to strive to be net zero, meaning that we produce as much as we consume,” he said.

The house’s shell was built and brought to its construction site on campus by Homeway Homes, a modulate home builder company. Homeway Homes completed some of the electrical wires and plumbing for the home, said Sean Denny, a student who is helping with lighting and appliances for the project. The Re_home will eventually be competing in an international Solar Decathlon held by the U.S. Department of Energy. The judging for the competition is based on 10 categories, including engineering, architecture and home comfort, Cirone said. A critical and new category for this year is the affordability category, where the team had to keep the home’s maximum cost at $250,000 dollars, he added.

“They’re grading us on how practical our house is, as opposed to competitions in the past, where money has been no object,” Cirone said.

Carolyn Mesha, the project manager, worked on the project’s proposal and handled the sponsorship aspect of the project. She said the business side of this project is imperative because they have a large budget, and they have to get sponsors to help with their funds.

Mesha said she wanted to get involved because of the University’s past success, and she wanted to gain experience.

“I chose to get involved at the very beginning stage because I had heard a lot about the 2009 project and how successful it was,” Mesha said. “It seemed like a really good learning opportunity.”