(II) Solar energy house: the Solar Decathlon
16 July, 2010 No Comments
Evaluating the Solar Decathlon project, we see that:
- It is a renewable energy system, where the consumer becomes its own electricity generator.
- The sponsor Schneider Electric has created a microgrid or intelligent power system, which converts the 17 homes that were part of this project in a self-sufficient network, which could even sell electricity to utilities. Unlike conventional network, in which there is only one source of energy (electricity company) and all network elements are consumers, in microgrid, the consumer is able to generate electricity and could be connected elements at times acting as consumers or power generators.
- Therefore, future homes, fed with any type of renewable energy, inject their excess energy network and, in turn, in the event that there is little solar radiation, would feed electricity from the system. It should also be able to store some of the energy in batteries to be used later on.
- This system is currently used in isolated or not connected to the electrical grid areas, mainly due to the complexity of managing electric power, that’s why it is limited to hotels, public buildings, etc.
- We have built 17 real houses, sustainable, self-sufficient, comfortable and fed exclusively by solar energy. Of the houses that have intervened, the winner was “Lumenhaus” held by the team of Virginia Tech University
From the above we can deduce that in the future, these systems will lower enough the power consumption of households, this may complicate the lives of the electricity companies, as they not only lose a part of the business, but produced in accordance with demand, because this demand will vary as they generate electricity which, until now they have only been consumers.
All these advantages should help promote the increased use of renewable and clean energy at the expense of current ones, whose use is more polluting and damaging to the ecosystem.
