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PPI's Building & Construction Division has renewed our commitment to the Solar Decathlon - Design Challenge event for 2020. This is PPI’s sixth year supporting this DOE program.

The 2020 Solar Decathlon Design Challenge will take place at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado on April 17-19, 2020.

As we've done since 2015, PPI will be an Education Sponsor and BCD's Director of Engineering Lance MacNevin will return as a juror.

PPI encourages design teams to incorporate innovative plumbing and mechanical systems to improve the health, safety and welfare of your building occupants and the efficiency of your buildings. This includes systems such as:

• Fire protection
• Hot- and cold-water plumbing
• Hydronic radiant heating & cooling
• Ground source geothermal piping systems

To provide inspiration and guidance, we are pleased to share the following information about the systems which are based on technologies supported by our organization and our members. Please review the following:

• PPI Resources for 2020 Design Challenge
• 2020 Design Challenge – PPI Plumbing & Mechanical Solutions (presentation)
• 2020 Design Challenge – PPI Plumbing & Mechanical Solutions (webinar)
• BCD Applications

Results
The 2020 event accepted entries from 45 teams representing 31 collegiate institutions from the United States, Canada, Australia, Egypt, Ecuador, and other countries. Entries were in six categories of building types (e.g. Urban Single Family, Multi-Family, and Elementary School). Teams of Jurors, assigned to each category, utilized an objective scoring scheme to evaluate each of the design entries across ten contests (i.e. “Decathlon”).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 event was held virtually, with students submitting video presentations, in addition to the typical submission documents, to the jurors in advance of the Competition Weekend. On April 18th, DOE arranged for each student team to give a summary presentation to the jurors, followed by Q&A and discussion. Then, the jurors shared comments, compared scores, and reached consensus to select their category’s winner.

On April 19th the six Division Winners were announced. Following a few minutes of joy, each winning team then gave a summary presentation of their design, and the Grand Jurors selected the overall Grand Winners.

See the full 2020 results.

Congratulations to the Winners:

Urban Single-Family Division: The University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC)

• Ground source geothermal and radiant heating/cooling distribution
• Presentation Slides

Suburban Single-Family Division: Monash University (Melbourne, Australia)

• Multiple sustainable strategies to resist bush fires
• Presentation Slides

Attached Housing Division: Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)

• Urban revitalization with pre-fabricated passive house design
• Presentation Slides

Mixed-Use Multifamily Division: The University of Arizona (Tucson, Arizona)

• Retrofitting commercial spaces with passive cooling in a desert climate
• Presentation Slides

Elementary School Division: University of Oregon (Eugene, Oregon)

• Radiant heating in an interactive school facility
• Presentation Slides

Office Building Division: Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, Illinois)

• Ground source heat pump with radiant ceiling cooling in a Chicago high-rise
• Presentation Slides

Note: Photo credits to "DOE Solar Decathlon"