Scope of Work: Solar Decathlon and Green Building - Draft 2

--Brian Halma & Jaime Fearer

The Solar Decathlon team at the University of Maryland (UMD) is an asset that generates applied research that can and should be commercialized. The UMD team will be a finalist for the fourth time in the history of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Decathlon, joining 19 other finalist teams from around the world in the 5th biennial competition. As part of the competition, a multi-disciplinary team of students spent nearly two years designing a house that fulfills DOE’s criteria of being “cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive” and powered solely by the sun. The nature of the competition lends itself to providing technology that is applicable to the emerging “green” construction industry. Two of the ten jury categories in the Solar Decathlon are “Market Appeal,” with the broad focus of livability, marketability and buildability, and “Affordability,” which scores houses based on a target cost of $250,000. The overarching purpose of the Solar Decathlon is to educate the public and disseminate information about clean-energy products, energy-efficient construction, and a clean-energy workforce. According to DOE, members of the public toured Solar Decathlon houses more than 300,000 times in 2009. Additionally, DOE conducted 32 workshops for the public and a day of workshops for building professionals that hosted more than 500 in the field.

The DOE effort is a start, and UMD’s University Center would provide a more targeted, intensive effort that would encourage the commercialization of innovations in materials and methods developed during the course of the Solar Decathlon, and effectively link these innovations to the established local green building industry. The University Center would support a one-day symposium that would feature a tour of the University of Maryland Solar Decathlon house, Watershed, followed by an event that would bring together members of the UMD Solar Decathlon team, architects, entrepreneurs and capital funders in the green field, and members of the local construction industry. The symposium would offer a chance for UMD Solar Decathlon team members to discuss the new techniques and technology they developed, entrepreneurs and funders to evaluate the commercialization prospects of the new techniques and technology, and architects and construction industry members to evaluate possible new practices. This effort would be supported by UMD assets, including the university’s Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) and the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech).

This element of the University Center will play a coordinating role in filling the gap between the innovations generated through the University of Maryland’s Solar Decathlon team and their commercial application by entrepreneurs. As the Solar Decathlon team develops new products and processes in the green building field, UMD’s OTC will assist in patenting and licensing issues. Finally, the actual innovations will lead to increased efficiency in the built environment, and the UMD University Center will foster the connections necessary to guide these innovations into the marketplace.

The Washington, DC, region is a leader in green building. The District of Columbia itself has the highest ratio of LEED certified square footage per resident, and 171 LEED certified buildings were built in the District, Northern Virginia, and the Maryland suburbs of DC between 2003 and 2009. Green building represents both economic development and an opportunity to promote environmental sustainability. One of the challenges is determining the next steps that can occur to enhance the regional green building industry. The University Center would focus on research--what is driving green construction, how widely accepted are green building practices, and what is the breakdown between commercial and residential applications. With this information on regional green building practices and trends, local governments, including several that have shown a strong interest in promoting more sustainable practices, will have better information on how to promote green building practices. More importantly, the University Center will identify gaps and areas requiring attention in the regional green building economic ecosystem that can be improved through entrepreneurial activity and public policy.

The goal of the UMD University Center is to advance and cultivate both the established and nascent networks that exist in our region among inventors, entrepreneurs, companies, and associations in the green building field. As the connections are made, the University Center will begin to survey, map, and analyze all of the regional resources for sustainability. In doing so, the University Center will provide additional support to an already burgeoning industry, establish protocol for bridging network gaps, and leverage resources across a number of sustainable initiatives beneficial to Maryland and beyond.