Skip navigation to main content. U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon | Powered by the Sun
Bookmark and Share
Printable Version

Photo of six students in khaki pants and navy shirts standing on an elevated walkway next to a man wearing a business suit in front of a white house. Solar panels line the roof of the house

The University of Colorado at Boulder took first place in the Solar Decathlon 2002 overall competition. Here, CU students stand on the porch of their winning home with Congressman Mark Udall.

Solar Decathlon 2002

Find Out What Happened to the Houses After the Competition

Research conducted in Fall 2008 revealed the following about most of the Solar Decathlon 2002 competition houses:

Auburn University

The house currently resides on the university's Agricultural Campus, where it has been landscaped and is used as office space and for educational tours. Auburn University has received a request from a nearby nature preserve visitor's center to relocate the house to that property.

Carnegie Mellon University

The 2002 house was dismantled, and many of its parts were used for the university's 2005 Solar Decathlon house.

Crowder College

The MUIR house is on campus and is being used as offices for the school's Renewable Energy Department. It is being monitored, but data are not being compiled at this point. Tours of the house are conducted three to four times per week.

Texas A&M University

The house was scrapped.

Tuskegee University

The house is in a somewhat inaccessible location and is not being used or monitored. There are plans to use the house for research, but funding presents a major hurdle.

Universidad de Puerto Rico

This house is thought to have been scrapped.

University of Colorado at Boulder

The BASE+ house was sold to private owners, who integrated it into a new, larger home near Golden, Colorado. Used as an office, kitchen, and bedroom within the larger home, the house is not being monitored at this time. Owner modifications include installing a heat pump along with radiant floor heating. The house has been featured on the American Solar Energy Society Solar Home Tour three times.

University of Delaware

The house was donated to Delaware Aerospace Education Foundation, where it has been rebuilt and expanded. It now provides an opportunity to extend the educational benefits of the University of Delaware Solar Decathlon project to the public.

University of Maryland

The house sustained significant water damage, and the school salvaged what it could sell. The remainder was torn apart as trash.

University of Missouri-Rolla and Rolla Technical Institute

The 2002 house was the first to be set up in the university's Solar Village, which provides a home for the 2002, 2005, and 2007 Solar Decathlon houses. All three houses are part of the NREL Solar Building Benchmarking Project.

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Plans to have the house used as a permanent teaching and research component at the university were never realized because funding was unavailable post-competition. A recycling group wanted to salvage the shell, but a building inspector deemed that the house was not up to code. Currently, the shell is behind campus, but the solar panels were used for a secondary research project in Fall 2008.

University of Texas at Austin

This house is now on the grounds of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, just east of Austin.

University of Virginia

Plans to use the house as a faculty guest house did not materialize, so the house was donated to an affordable housing organization, Piedmont Housing Alliance. The alliance decided to sell the home to a private individual because upkeep was unrealistic for low-income residents. The money from the sale was rolled back into Piedmont's programs. The house is currently inhabited but unmonitored. There are tentative plans to monitor it again in the future.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The house is currently located on the Virginia Tech campus at the College Research and Demonstration facilities. The house is monitored (but not continuously) and is actively integrated into architectural and engineering courses. Plans are to compare the efficiencies of the 2002, 2005, and 2009 houses, but funding may be an inhibiting factor.