3 Student Chapters Among Winning Teams in 2022 Solar Decathlon

The 2022 Solar Decathlon Design Challenge — a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) collegiate competition that tasks students with designing low-carbon, high-performance buildings powered by renewable energy — celebrated its 20^th anniversary with a standout lineup of 20 winning projects across multiple categories.

Among the winning projects, which were selected from a pool of 54 Design Challenge finalists, three NAHB student chapters placed in three separate categories:

• University of Cincinnati — 1^st place for Education Building Division
  • Cordoba Sustainability Vocational School
• Ball State University — 2^nd place for Attached Housing Division
  • Project Xero
• The Pennsylvania State University — 3^rd place for Retrofit Housing Division
  • MorningStar House

Top honors went to Georgia Institute of Technology team for the Residential Grand Winner and the University of Arizona team for the Commercial Grand Winner.

See a full list of winners from this year’s competition.

NAHB congratulates all the student teams and faculty for their hard work, innovative solutions, outstanding projects and, most of all, for leading the charge in the next generation of housing.

“NAHB is proud to be a longtime supporting partner of the Solar Decathlon,” stated NAHB Jerry Konter. “It is truly inspiring to see the hard work, creative high-performance designs, and innovative ideas of the student competition teams. The program not only promotes and showcases sustainable building practices, but also helps prepare the future generation of the green building and design industry.”

Learn more about how solar has continued to grow in this q-and-a with seasoned Solar Decathlon judge and NAHB member Ray Tonjes.

To stay current on the high-performance residential building sector, with tips on water efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and other building science strategies, follow NAHB’s Sustainability and Green Building efforts on Twitter.