UW’s solar challenge home taking shape

Students from University of Wyoming’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences are progressing with work on a solar-powered home in the foothills of Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains that represents the entry by a team of UW students in an international competition to design zero-energy buildings.

According to UW Director of Institutional Communications, Chad Baldwin, the three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath home, located 10 miles southwest of Lander and overlooking Red Canyon, is part of the 2023 U.S. Department of Energy 20th annual Solar Decathlon Build Challenge.

The Solar Decathlon Build Challenge is DOE’s longest-tenured student competition, challenging 40,000 students across the world to use the latest technologies to design and build the most sustainable buildings possible.

Baldwin told listeners of Sheridan Media’s Public Pulse program a little about the competition and the house. 

The students from UW’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences are among 16 finalist teams — selected from 23 collegiate institutions spanning four countries.

Designed in a modern Mountain West style, the UW Solar Decathlon Build Challenge house will have a super insulated and air-tight envelope; advanced heating systems, including a heat pump and radiant floors; green building materials; and a large array of solar panels to ensure the home will produce more energy than it consumes on an annual basis.

This coming spring semester, students in the new ARE 4920 course will help see UW’s entry through the final stages with a series of activities – spread across 10 categories – that will be used to judge the house.

According to UW, contractors Cory and Morgan Toye, of Timshel Construction, have reached the enclosure stage of construction, which is scheduled for completion in the spring, when the house will be instrumented and tested for the final stage of the competition. The UW student team will showcase the home to the public, with both in-person and 3D virtual tours, and will then present to jurors again at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in April for the final awards.

After the competition, the home, on its 6-acre lot, will be made available for sale.

To view the most recent 3D scan of the interiors of the house, take a virtual tour by clicking here.  

For more information about the UW Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management, click here.