Solar House Teaches Tufts Students Sustainability

This fall, Tufts students will have the opportunity to live in the most state-of-the art residence, but not on the Medford campus. In October, Matt Thoms, Mike Sidebottom, Dante DeMeo and other students will live in a house they helped design and build on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall as part of the 2009 Solar Decathlon, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Tufts and Boston Architectural College have joined forces to design and construct an energy-efficient, attractive and affordable 800 sq-ft home that they call "Curio" — for inspiring curiosity about how to live sustainably in the 21st century. Tufts students from the School of Engineering, programs in Arts & Sciences, such as the Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and even the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy have had roles to play in the creation of Curio.

Engineers Dante DeMeo (E’08), Matt Thoms (E’10), and Mike Sidebottom (E’10) [from left to right] are three of the students working on the design and construction of an affordable and energy-efficient solar house as part of the 2009 Solar Decathlon competition.

Thoms (E'10) is the engineering student project director overseeing Curio's technical and engineering elements, one of the ten contests (hence decathlon) in which Team Boston will compete. Twenty-eight solar panels cover the Curio rooftop — standard fare for a solar house. What's new is that each of these panels will have the ability to convert solar energy to electricity to power the house. Normally, a solar panel array is strung together somewhat like Christmas tree lights. If one bulb malfunctions, the entire tree goes dark. With new "micro-inverter" technology, each solar panel will monitor its own energy output and relay this energy to Curio's computerized power grid without being beholden to its neighbor to transmit energy down the chain.

Not only is this efficient, says Thoms, it's affordable.

"With photovoltaic panels that have micro-inverters, a homeowner could begin to decrease their reliance on the energy grid one panel at a time," Thoms says. "A full, expensive solar array wouldn’t have to be installed for someone to start going green."

Affordability is a key component to Team Boston’s vision. The winning German team for the 2007 Solar Decathlon competition spent in excess of $1 million to complete the construction of its home—a cost unattainable for an average American family with an annual household income only slightly more than $50,000.

"Sustainable living is the future but it’s not a very practical goal if the related costs are so enormous that they're not accessible to a wider community of average homebuyers," says Bill Moomaw, principal investigator on the USDOE grant and director of Tufts Institute for the Environment, as well as a professor of international environmental policy at The Fletcher School.

"We're concerned about Curio's 'triple bottom line' of sustainability—not only just the environmental impacts, but social and economic impacts as well," says Benjamin Steinberg, a project leader on policy and community outreach related work, and a master’s student in Tufts' Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program.

"We envision Curio as a catalyst for dialogue—a place that encourages individuals and communities to consider the different ways they can get involved in the sustainability or green movement based on their lifestyles, preferences, and means," he adds.

Curio construction has already begun at a warehouse on the Tufts campus and will soon move to the build site behind Pearson Hall. With an initial DOE grant of $100,000, Team Boston has launched additional fundraising efforts, including in-kind donations of construction materials such as lumber, screws, nails, and solar panels.

Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn is given the honor of breaking ground for the construction site of the Team Boston's 'Curio' house as part of the 2009 Solar Decathlon. Members from Tufts and BAC witness the ground breaking.

Following the construction phase, Team Boston will transport Curio to the National Mall where houses from 19 additional teams will be judged and open to the public for viewing. During this year's competition, more than 250,000 people are expected to visit the temporary solar village.

BAC and Tufts students lead the bulk of all these efforts — perhaps the most important educational aspect of what the Solar Decathlon can teach the students, says Moomaw. "What better education experience than to plan, design and build a house?"

"Our goal is education; it's about living curiously," says Kevin Horne, a master's student at BAC and another project leader who spoke at the Earth Day groundbreaking ceremony in April. "It's about challenging our assumptions and questioning precedents. It's about wondering how we got in this [environmental] mess, and how we get out of it."

Are you Curious?
For more information about how you can help, please visit: www.livecurio.us or for additional information about the 2009 Solar Decathlon, please visit: www.solardecathlon.org

—Julia C. Keller is Communications Manager at Tufts School of Engineering