Louisville, KY -- The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UC) and the University of Kentucky tapped some top performers from GE Appliances to support their successful quest for green at the recent Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. Top GE participants included the Monogram® Advantium® Oven, the Profile™ 24-in Horizontal Washer/Dryer, and the Monogram® Exhaust Hood.
"Congratulations to The University of Illinois UC and the University of Kentucky teams," said [insert name and title]. "Their hard work, ingenuity and determination in the Solar Decathlon have made GE proud to donate our energy-efficient appliances and employee support to their teams."
The Competition
The 2009 Solar Decathlon, held Oct. 8-16, is a bi-annual competition conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy. Twenty teams of college and university students design and construct a small home that utilizes sunlight as the sole source of power for all the household utilities and appliances.
Teams spend two years designing and building their homes, which are then assembled and judged at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
There are ten contests for best use of solar power -- hence Solar Decathlon -- including Home Entertainment, Hot Water, Lighting Design, Market Viability and others. The competition winner is the team that scores the most overall number of points.
Each entry is evaluated on the universities' and colleges' use and conservation of energy. But further emphasis is based on their provision of a comfortable, functional and evolutionary home design.
The Results
The University of Illinois at UC entry, "Gable Home," finished second to the German team in the overall competition and was the top-scoring U.S. entry. Gable Home finished first in three of ten categories: Hot Water, Appliances, and Home Entertainment, and second in two others.
GE Appliances provided a Monogram Advantium Oven that was used in the University of Illinois UC's winning entry, which is named for the traditional gable roof profile used in the design typical of homes in Midwest farming areas. The team attempted to combine advanced energy efficiency with traditional construction techniques and is now working with a modular homebuilder to incorporate some of the features of this house into commercial design. GE's Monogram Advantium Oven helped enable the UC team to win the Home Entertainment contest, which entailed cooking for two typical dinner parties.
Taking part in the competition for the first time, the University of Kentucky entered "s*ky blue," which finished ninth in the competition.
GE Appliances also provided the University of Kentucky's team with a Monogram Advantium Oven, Monogram 30-inch Induction Cooktop, Profile 24-inch Horizontal Washer/Dryer, and Profile 18-inch Dishwasher, and Monogram Exhaust Hood, as well as a review of the overall thermal management plans for the house. The s*ky blue house design is based on the historic Kentucky breezeway treatment -- a rectangular building with a central open space. The team created a unique computer-controlled home electrical management system, which utilized regular data from a weather-monitoring system to optimize energy usage throughout the house.
The U.S. Department of Energy will hold the next competition in October of 2011. For more information on the entries of the 2009 competition, the DOE Solar Decathlon website at http://www.solardecathlon.org/ is suggested.
About GE -- Appliances & Lighting
GE -- Appliances & Lighting spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliances, lighting, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use, GE -- Appliances & Lighting uses innovative technologies and ecomaginationSM, a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort and convenience. General Electric (NYSE: GE), imagination at work, sells products under the Monogram®, Profile™, GE®, Hotpoint®, Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Tetra®, Vio™ and Immersion® commercial brands. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com
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