I’m sitting on the porch of the Georgia Tech’s Solar Home, listening in on the strategy sessions on regulating the power from the array of solar panels on the roof. The competition’s scoring system has all kinds of regulations, rules, and ways to earn points. This means the strategies range from making sure the electric car is drawing excess energy from the panels, while running the dishwasher to using passive cooling (opening the doors) versus simply saving up energy to complete the energy balance (no net loss) daily.

The competition is really heating up. Georgia Tech’s team is a bit bummed about their placement in the Lighting category. Their entire concept is based on Lighting — and is quite spectacular, with the best natural light of all the homes, in my humble opinion. Somehow, with their clever use of LED, florescent, and sun-light, they got placed last (20th), and not just last, but quite far behind the 19th place finisher. It’s quite baffling, and it’s dropped them from 2nd to 4th, which says a lot about how well they’re still doing in every other category.

The mood on the mall of DC is very cool. Last night, Jodi was giving me a “private” tour when Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) walked up with a few aides, and wanted a tour as well. So, Bernie and I toured the home with Jodi as our guide.

Georgia Tech’s Team Icarus is competing in this year’s Department of Energy sponsored Solar Decathalon.  Jodi has been working tirelessly for the past year on the house as part of her Architecture Master’s degree, or what I like to call her “early retirement” (only kidding honey).  Her impeccable design talents really show through.  She’s way too modest to blog about it, but, I, on the other hand, have to do some shameless promotion to give this blog its namesake.  Plus, I’m killing two birds with one stone by blogging about this awesome environmental cause as part of Blog Action Day 2007.

Just some insider facts about the Georgia Tech’s Solar Home:

• The solar panels covering the roof power the full home and home office, and an electric car.
• It has a sexy Bulthaup kitchen with a full glass window where a sink floats over it.  German, modern, industrial, clean lines with a Bisaza glass tile backsplash make this kitchen hott.
• It has a “transparent” roof — this is cool because all around the top of the roof there’s sunlight streaming in, and with the solar panels able to move on levers, this house lets in a serious amount of light.  This could mean lots of extra heat, but the aerogel insulation and clever shading do a good job of just letting light in and keeping heat out.
• The shower has a full floor to ceiling window for “showing off your assets” to your neighbors.  Actually, I can see this house on the side of a mountain or on the beach….

I’m going up to Washington DC to visit the competition, and Jodi this Wednesday through Saturday.  I’ll be tumbloging the event.  As it stands now, Georgia Tech is in 2nd place!