FIU, Tsinghua University students competing in Solar Decathlon China

A group of students and faculty from FIU are in Datong, China this week to team with their counterparts from Tsinghua University in the Solar Decathlon China 2013 competition.

Two students from the College of Engineering & Computing, Michele Markovits and Kun Bao, have been in China for the last few weeks to help with the on-site construction of the team’s energy efficient, cost-effective and attractive solar-powered house, which began July 15.

The competition opened on Friday, Aug. 2, and will run through this Saturday, Aug. 10. The FIU students are joined by three faculty members, including Marilys Nepomechie, professor of architecture, Yimin Zhu, associate professor and graduate program director in the OHL School of Construction, and Cheng-Xian “Charlie” Lin, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. They are teaming with 40 students and four faculty members from Tsinghua University, located in Beijing.

The students are one of 20 teams in the competition – which is the result of a memorandum of understanding between the governments of the United States and the People’s Republic of China, which states that the two nations “have a common goal in fostering sustainable economic and social development while encouraging the use of renewable energy sources and recognize that solar energy development and use is an important part of their collaboration.”

Representatives from the two universities first met in Sept. of 2011 when Zhu and Professor Irtishad Ahmad, director of FIU’s OHL School of Construction, traveled to China to discuss details of collaboration with the team at Tsinghua University.

For the last several months, a group of about 20 students and faculty from College of Engineering and Computing and School of Architecture have been communicating with a team of more than 50 students at Tsinghua University via Skype, phone and email and sharing documents on Dropbox to work on the design of a house approximately 800 square feet in size.

During the nine days of the competition, the energy consumed by each house is generated by solar energy solutions. The competition will assess the team’s ability to conserve energy, control their physical environment and ability to be fully energy sufficient. Modeled after the Olympic decathlon competition, each home will be evaluated on their performance in 10 contests.

SD China is hosted by the National Energy Administration of China and the U.S. Department of Energy, co-hosted by the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, supported by All-China Students Federation Secretariat, and organized by Peking University.

The design for the house has elements of traditional Chinese architecture while also incorporating the latest in sustainable technology.

In an interview via email, Bao estimated the total number of students and faculty at the competition at around 800. He said the teams were all a little tense during the building process over the last two weeks as everyone worried about the progress they were making. By the time of Friday’s opening festivities, which included a dinner party, the atmosphere was very nice, he reported.

“I’m feeling well,” wrote Bao, who shared a time-lapse video the team made during the construction. “The feeling may be like a mother the first time she see her baby. We tried our best to design and build this house during the last two years. I just want share my happiness with everyone here about this house.”