Collegiate Times

The student team celebrates after winning first place.

Correction: This story has been modified from its original version. — This is the first time in three years that a German team has not won the Solar Decathlon competition, not the Madrid competition. The Collegiate Times regrets this error.

Lumenhaus, a house designed by Virginia Tech architects and engineers to run exclusively from solar power, has placed first in the Solar Decathlon Europe competition in Madrid, Spain.

Lumenhaus faced 16 other competing solar-run houses from seven other countries and was judged both in the overall category and in 10 different subcategories.

In October, the house, which has been worked on for more than three years by engineering and architecture students along with main faculty advisor Robert Dunay, competed in the U.S. Solar Decathlon, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. It then travelled from Washington, D.C., to New York, where it resided in Times Square in January. Lumenhaus later spent four months back at Tech before being shipped by boat to Spain.

Lumenhaus is entirely solar-powered. Its energy levels can be controlled and monitored through an iPhone application. All devices inside the house, such as the refrigerator and washing machine, run from solar power.

The house also monitors and controls the amount of energy it dumps back into the power grid. The outer solar panel system on the exterior of the house, known as “Eclipsis,” controls the house’s energy intake as well as the temperature inside.

This is the first time in three years that a German team has not won the Solar Decathlon competition.

The student-faculty team that travelled to Madrid is expected home on July 2, according to a Tech news release.

A version of this article appeared in the Jul 1 issue of the Collegiate Times.