Solar flair

Team Orange County, the hometown entry led by University of California, Irvine with Chapman University, Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College, scored big in the prestigious engineering contest at the U.S. Dept. of Energy Solar Decathlon 2015. Jurors praised their net zero energy Casa del Sol home as “the most innovative in the entire competition.”

Judges cited a “dazzling display” of technologies, including a first-ever bi-directional inverter that converts the sun’s rays into direct current to power an electric car, a paraffin lined clothes dryer and other energy-saving features. Team OC scored just one point less in the engineering contest than Stevens Institute of Technology, which won the overall decathlon for their disaster-response themed solar home.

The win on the last day of a grueling two-year competition was met with jubilant cheers and fist pumps. The 100-plus students, faculty and sponsors who worked on Casa del Sol saw some of their unique devices break down during the contest, including a crack in the inverter; the judges’ praise vindicated their boundary-stretching designs and hard work.

“We really pushed the envelope in big ways,” said project engineer Moritz Limpinsel, a UCI graduate student studying chemical and materials physics. “We wanted to show that these new technologies can replace business as usual. It feels great. I’m glad the jury acknowledged our unique designs.”

“Whoooooo! Yahooooo!!” shouted UCI electrical engineering student Euiso Kim behind him. Limpinsel laughed: “Euiso’s right; that says it much better.”

Gregory Washington, dean of the Samueli School of Engineering, and fellow faculty from the four schools beamed.

“These students now believe they have the ability, the know-how, the tenacity, the perseverance to change the world,” Washington said. “And they will literally try to do it.”

“This is what great universities do, they provide opportunities for their students to show just how brilliant and creative and hard-working they are,” said Chapman University political science professor Fred Smoller. “They built a great house and I’m very proud of them.”

Read below for more on Team Orange County and Casa del Sol:

The August forecast calls for triple-digit heat in Irvine, Calif. – for the next week and the next century.

Alex McDonald, 31, a graduate student in engineering at the University of California, Irvine, is unfazed. He gazes at the thick walls of a home taking shape in a corner of the Irvine Valley College campus. “Our house is fully sustainable and comfortable,” he says. “It’s modeled after the California poppy, which opens and closes to the sun. And water is a big concern here in California, so it’s also drought-resistant.”

Mahdi Jorat, 19, of Saddleback College agrees. “We’re the first generation to fully live with global warming, as this weather shows, and we’re building a house that does something about it,” he says.

“We’re the first generation to fully live with global warming … and we’re building a house that does something about it.” – Mahdi Jorat, 19, UCI engineering major

Over the past two years, they and about 100 other students and faculty from UCI, IVC, Chapman University and Saddleback College have designed an energy-efficient, drought-tolerant, affordable home of the future. Now construction is underway.

Casa del Sol is Orange County’s first-ever entry in this month’s U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, which challenges college students worldwide to build and live in a zero-net-energy home. That means it must produce and store more electricity than it needs.

For power, the UCI-led team looks to the blazing sun rather than polluting coal. But they leap far beyond standard solar panels, employing innovative residential direct current instead of typical AC/DC, which “leaks” voltage at a high rate; solar thermal radiant cooling in the ceilings; a paraffin-lined dryer that holds heat for multiple loads; and other big energy- and water-saving features.

The competition process is mind-boggling: Team Orange County had to not only draw sophisticated plans capable of passing tough state codes but also raise about $1 million in donated time, parts and cash. After the concept home is built at IVC, the students must test the plumbing and power to make sure they work, then rip it all down, get it to the Orange County Great Park and rebuild it in a matter of days. There, from Oct. 8 to 18, judges and the public – more than 65,000 at the last decathlon – will get to see them live in and explain their vision.

“The Solar Decathlon is the most comprehensive student design build test that I know of,” says Gregory Washington, dean of UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering. “Building a home is complex; building a net-zero home is ultracomplex; and then building a home that’s competing against 15 or 20 other teams globally really ratchets up the intensity.”

McDonald, project manager, is overseeing the mammoth task of funding and constructing a home that, if everything works, will use a miserly 17 kilowatt hours daily – for running appliances, laptops and the television; holding dinner parties; and powering a 25-mile commute. The average American home runs on 30 kilowatts per day, with no plug-in car.

While he’s proud of Casa del Sol’s innovative technologies, McDonald says coordinating it all is “kind of like being in finals week – every day, for two years straight.”

Team Orange County is Dean Washington’s brainchild. It was one of 20 from around the world selected in 2014. Two months before the decathlon, only 14 are still in the grueling competition. Yale University and others have dropped out.

With the Great Park being the event’s official venue this year, Team Orange County has certain advantages. Its members know Southern California living. They’ve included architectural features to combat dusty Santa Ana winds that might roar during the October event, and they’ve maximized openings for coastal breezes. The home’s shutters and outdoor shades open and close in tune with sunlight, like the diurnal poppy, explains Paige Svehlak, 22, a Saddleback College interior design student who rode horses as a girl on what is now the Great Park.

Affordability is key in the pricey region. One wing transitions into separate living quarters for older parents, renters or young adult offspring – “someone like me,” says Lotus Thai, a 20-year-old environmental science and business major at Chapman who lives with her parents and younger sister to cut college expenses. Once complete, the two- to three-bedroom home will cost between $250,000 and $350,000 to replicate.

"I believe that these students now believe they have the ability, the know-how, the tenacity, the perseverance to change the world. And they will literally try to do it." – Gregory Washington, dean of UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering

Orange County’s leading homebuilders and architects provide major help, along with retired carpenters and scores of others who’ve never seen a house like this.

And the hometown team’s members must move the home only a few miles rather than across a continent, yielding an extra month for construction and testing. They use every minute.

It’s a sweltering August afternoon. The mercury hits 105 degrees in the IVC parking lot. Teagan Barnes and Jewelz Andrews, both 21-year-old UCI engineering majors, and David Kincade, 30, an IVC engineering major, bend over an array of copper pipes and valves, re-welding joints for the fifth time.

“Yes, we are sweating while we sweat the pipes,” jokes Jack Brouwer, UCI associate professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering, who’s coaching them.

The pump skid provides the muscles of the house, meant to push water through the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, as well as from graywater and rainwater catchments to low-water landscaping.

But the piping they received fits metric solar tubes, not American ones. And some T valves pointed the wrong way. In short, it was a mess. The four have tried repeatedly to cut, adjust, re-weld and fit the pipes. No luck.

“It’s a struggle,” admits Kincade, who worked at copper mines and industrial sites for 10 years before entering college. “My wife is keeping me going with junk food.”

It’s just one of the hurdles. Eager students sawed and quickly painted 1,000 square feet of outdoor decking only to realize at day’s end that they had cut many pieces too short. Possibly worst of all, the $15,000, bidirectional AC/DC or DC/DC inverter that’s critical to winning has not yet arrived from Princeton, N.J.

The summer whine of saws, sharp crack of nails and human hum continues but at sharply reduced levels. With students graduating, Team Orange County has lost initial crews and leaders. Andy Truong, 21, a newly minted UCI graduate with a B.S. in civil engineering who’s co-construction manager and water manager, is hired off the site – without even applying – to be an engineer for the LAX expansion project.

Starting salary: $74,000. “My mother was so proud, she was crying,” he says. “Then she said, ‘Here’s an Excel spreadsheet of everything we spent on your college education.’” By Labor Day he’s gone.

Frustration leads to tempers on edge. Little slights, unreturned phone calls and delayed orders have everyone muttering and occasionally lashing out.

Sept. 9 is the hottest day of the year. A core 10 students slog on, helped by a few equally dedicated volunteers. “I’m humbled and awed by my teammates,” McDonald says. “And by our partners.”

Barnes, Kincade and Andrews carefully load the intricate plumbing rack into the power room at the back of the house. That afternoon, a freak thunderstorm sweeps in from San Diego and drenches the exhausted crews before they scramble inside. The oppressive humidity and gloom lift. Six days until the building inspector comes.

Suddenly it starts to fall into place. The inverter arrives, along with a company rep to help install it. Platoons of students arrive back from vacation ready to paint, build vertical planters, do whatever needs to be done. Every day yields milestones: the solar panels nailed onto the roof, the outdoor surf shower completed.

One afternoon, UCI electrical engineering student Euiso Kim, 21, fills the pump skid with water and flicks the switch. They wait, scared to hope. Everything from hot showers and a functioning clothes dryer to the cutting-edge radiant cooling and heating depends on this.

“I knew it would take time, but it was so slow,” Barnes says. “Then it worked! It was amazing!”

There’s one leak in a Y joint, and it’s fixed in minutes. All 12 HVAC systems function flawlessly. Barnes looks like she’s been lit by the sun from inside.

The kitchen and bathrooms take shape. Recent UCI engineering graduate Yon Chung, 22, races joyfully through all 998 square feet. “Look! It looks so cool! Before, we just had a structure; now we have a real house!”

By Sept. 18, they’re done, or as done as they can be. Now they need to take it apart; number every stick, door and panel; load everything onto tractor-trailers; and pray it all makes it through an underpass to the Great Park.

At 7 a.m. on Sept. 28, when decathlon director Richard King hollers into the microphone, hundreds of students surge across the starting line and mark their house outlines. The first of 80 trucks bearing the guts of 14 homes – from New York, Texas, West Virginia, Missouri and elsewhere – lumbers into the park.

Everyone has nine days to rebuild before judging and public viewing begins.

Heather Greene, a 22-year-old UCI engineering major who designed and helped install the water conservation features, including rainwater tanks that will capture and reuse every possible drop, says: “I’m just stoked to be at the competition site and have people coming through and be in awe of our final product. To know we designed it and picked out the products and actually built it ourselves is really cool.”

Winners will be announced Oct. 17. Some observers say Casa del Sol deserves the trophy if its state-of-the-art inverter and power and water systems work as designed. After the decathlon, plans for all the homes will be available online, and many of their innovative technologies could be widely adopted.

And Team Orange County? The sky’s the limit.

“I believe that these students now believe they have the ability, the know-how, the tenacity, the perseverance to change the world,” Washington says. “And they will literally try to do it.”

– Janet Wilson, UCI