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 20th 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 — 1st place for Education Building Division
- Ball State University — 2nd place for Attached Housing Division
- The Pennsylvania State University — 3rd place for Retrofit Housing Division
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.
Latest from NAHBNow
Oct 20, 2025
USPS Clarifies Cluster Mailbox GuidanceFor more than 10 years, confusion over U.S. Postal Service (USPS) requirements for cluster mailbox units (CBUs) in new housing development has challenged builders nationwide. This issue recently resurfaced in the Greensboro, N.C., as developers in the area faced a lack of communication and arbitrary rules from local USPS representatives.
Oct 17, 2025
Put Your Guard Up: Guardrails Protect EveryoneGuardrail Safety Week is Oct. 20-24, and each year, NAHB partners with Builders Mutual, an insurance company focused on construction companies, in their Put Your Guard Up campaign to highlight the importance of installing guardrails on openings during construction.
Latest Economic News
Oct 20, 2025
Non-Conventional Financing for New Home Sales Loses Ground in 2024Nationwide, the share of non-conventional financing for new home sales accounted for 31% of the market per NAHB analysis of the 2024 Census Bureau Survey of Construction (SOC) data. This is 1.7 percentage point lower than the 2023 share of 32.4%. As in previous years, conventional financing dominated the market at 69.3% of sales, higher than the 2023 share of 67.6%.
Oct 17, 2025
Better Growth, Larger Deficits: CBO Fiscal OutlookThe Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a key nonpartisan score keeper that measures the effects of policy changes by the Federal Government. With several policy changes since January of this year, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), stricter immigration, and higher tariffs, the CBO updated its economic projections through 2028.
Oct 16, 2025
Amid Market Challenges, Builder Expectations Rise in OctoberEven as builders continue to grapple with market and macroeconomic uncertainty, sentiment levels posted a solid gain in October as future sales expectations surpassed the 50-point breakeven mark for the first time since last January.