Bucharest prepares for Solar Decathlon Competition in 2023

Romania’s capital will preparing for the Solar Decathlon Competition which is an international competition for solar home designs, writes Cristian Gherasim, Bucharest correspondent.

The event was announced following a press conferences held by EFdeN and the Energy Endeavour Foundation, a recent winner of the European Solar Prize, stewarding student research competitions & awareness activities in the fields of social, economic & environmental resource-responsibility.

The Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE) is an international student-based Competition that challenges collegiate Teams to design, build and operate highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy.The winner of the Competition is the Team able to score the most points in 10 contests.

Solar Decathlon is the most important sustainable housing competition in the world and first took place in 2002 in the United States. The Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests, Barna Tánczos, announced that the Government will partially provide financial support for the organization of the competition in Bucharest, and next week will approve a formal Memorandum in the Government in this regard, after which a Government Decision will be drafted.

The Minister of Environment likened this competition to the World or European environment championship.

“We will succeed in organizing flawlessly such an international competitions in Romania. It's like having a World or European Championship taking place in your country. Certainly we are much more receptive sometimes to the European Football Championship, because we are used to being in the stands, to support the national team. But this national team made up of young researchers, students with vision and the will to do something as important as any other national team, managed to bring such a competition to Romania. The Ministry of Environment will support this team and this initiative, together with our colleagues from the other ministries ", the minister declared during the press conference.

Until 2023, when the competition is scheduled to take place in Bucharest, Romania will be present at the 2021 edition of the international competition, which will take place in Germany, in Wuppertal.

At the previous edition of the “Solar Decathlon”, which took place in November 2018, in Dubai, EFdeN, the NGO which will be representing Romania during the upcoming edition, designed the EFdeN Signature solar house project, carried out by a team made up mainly of students. The house has a usable area of 75 square meters and consists of dining, living room, a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen. The building is 100% electric, and the energy is produced with the help of photovoltaic panels, which are arranged on the roof of the house. The price of the house amounts to 300,000 euros.

Gabriel Paun, environmental expert, told EU Reporter that the Solar Decathlon Competition brings forward some of the best environment friendly designs and some most innovative projects ever conceived.

“I would bet that the winner will come up with a house design that is equally efficient from the energy point of view and minimalist in terms of using resources/materials. It should also be a very beautiful, comfortable, plastic free and vegan”, Paun told EU Reporter.

Paun said that there are some many tools and methods to develop an environment friendly home.

“New findings show that even plastic can be made out of plants. Hemp can be used as an isolation material”, he told EU Reporter.

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