The Solar Decathlon is the international competition to concentrate on the sustainable solar houses in order to promote the use of solar energy. The teams from different universities of the world take part in the competition from over the world to design, build and operate the grid-connected and energetically self-sufficient house.
The Middle Eastern variant of this competition, Solar Decathlon Middle East has organized this competition with the collaboration of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) and department of Energy of USA and it will be managed in Dubai in 2018.
This is the first time that a team from Pakistan has been selected to participate in this competition.
Meet Team BGreen
Team BGreen is the multidisciplinary team, which is belonged to National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad and it consisted of 20 students and 5 faculty members, who also belong to various educational backgrounds like engineering, business, architecture and management. Muhammad Saad is the final year Civil Engineering students and he is the leader of this project and the students are managing and operating this team. The undergraduate students of Civil Engineering and Architecture have taken up this project and they prepared the proposal for completion under guidance of the PhD scholar, Dr M. Jamaluddin Thaheem. The learned scholar has done his PhD in Construction Risk Management from Politecnico di Torino, Italy. He is now Head of Department and Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering and Management at NUST.
The communications coordinator at BGreen says that the team shares the common interest to promote the sustainable construction practices and lifestyles at the juncture of global history, when there is human impact on planet, which is the cause of wide-scale climate change. This project will promote the sustainable construction practices and also exhibit the academic progress and prowess of Pakistan.
The main purpose of the design and development of the energy efficient house is based on solar energy in the desert area located in UAE and with their ensuring environmental concerns, they need to ensure the standards of modern urban living.
The competition needs that the house should be able to maintain the certain temperature range and provide lightening, run the appliances and more. For the energy production, the electricity should be generated to use the photovoltaic (solar electric) systems while space the4 heating and cooling and water heating should also be done with the use of solar thermal systems.
The production of the material is reduced and the house will have zero environmental impact as it has reliance on the renewable energy.
BGreen is also going to use the building of energy efficient houses with some modern methods of the construction and they are included with Project Delivery, Green roof, Smart Home Systems, Fabricated Panels and Wastewater Conservation.
Solar Decathlon Middle East
Solar Decathlon Middle East (SDME) has the purpose of developing and promoting ideas, capacities and technologies to implement for benefit of the people living in Middle East region. There are total 22 teams from different 16 countries, which will participate in SDME 2018.
This competition will be continued for two years from the selection of the final event between October to November 2018 and it is comprised of three phases.
Design
When the teams are shortlisted, they must finalize the details of the complete layout of house like architectural design, electrical layout, structural plan, smart systems, construction materials, mechanical systems in the design phase.
They must make available the rationale behind the various decisions about the design and the innovative measures, which are instilled in the design. The houses require getting the design as they are energy efficient and they consume less energy as possible with the minimal waste.
Construction
In the construction phase, the teams require to construct the home in the allotted area in the period of ten days. The construction site for the coming competition is reserved in Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Solar Park, Dubai.
Operation
The houses will be opened for the general public and the visitors will come to the houses and they will find the features and design of the houses. These houses will be added with the appliances furniture and other necessities so that they can promote them as their substitute to the conventional building and way of life.
This competition will be added with 10 contesting categories like architecture, Engineering and Construction, Energy Management, Comfort Conditions, Sustainable Transportation, Energy Efficiency, House Functioning, sustainability and communication and innovation. This house will give the value to all 10 categories.
When you talk about the energy consumption, the global landscape has changed during last few years. There are coal and oil, which are pushed out to use as the renewable energy sources like solar and wind. There are the companies like Tesla, which has proved the might of solar power to energize the whole islands with solar energy and lot of work still needs to be done to push the solar as the technology for mainstream use.
The Team BGreen has taken the commendable step and other universities in Pakistan and they should follow the suit to participate in the international competitions and they can get more information from their website.
Follow
