Romania, on the podium again at the international competition of solar houses, Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22!
After weeks of intense work and dedication, EFdeN Team managed to win at the Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22 three awards for the VATRA prototype:
- 1st place for Comfort Conditions
- 1st place for the Public’s Choice
- 3rd place for House Functioning
Our congratulations go out to the following students from UTCB, Faculty of Building Services Engineering and Faculty of Railways, Roads, Bridges:
- Tiberiu Andronoiu
- Rares Miclos
- Andrei Mondiru
- Nichi Vasile
- Florin Sivu
- Ioel Giger
15 other teams from Germany, the Netherlands, France, Taiwan, and other countries managed to complete their prototypes in this year’s Solar Decathlon Final in Wuppertal, Germany. The youngest team in the competition, consisting of over 30 students, achieved the performance of building a sustainable house, which functioned excellently throughout the competition and reached the best indicators of energy efficiency and comfort conditions.
‘7 weeks full of teamwork, monitoring and many other challenges. It was a unique experience, and the result was just right!’ – Andrei Mondiru, 2nd year student FII
‘All the experience at Solar Decathlon will be stored in my memory as an unforgettable experience that has managed to shape part of the future of my career. At the same time, I managed to strengthen important relationships with team members, but also from other prestigious universities’. – Rares Miclos, 2nd year student FII
‘We also would like to thank the Romanian community in Germany, which supported us, visited us and constantly encouraged us, helping us with building materials. We still need support to bring the house home to Romania and we want in the future to be able to develop systemic solutions and educational projects in Romania’. Claudiu Butacu, President of the Association.
The prototype was built from scratch – from research, to design, site management, transport and reconstruction in Germany and benefited from the support of over 100 partners, of which 50 were companies in Romania amounting to over 1 million euros.
The students rebuilt the house in less than 15 days, prepared for each evaluation session, held over 300 visits with the public and gathered over 15,000 hours of teamwork, competition and development opportunities.
The theme of the Solar Decathlon 21/22 competition addressed the regeneration of the built fund and the existing infrastructure, problems more current than ever in Germany, but also in Europe and other parts of the world. The global competition analyses students’ proposals according to 10 criteria, from architecture, engineering and construction, energy performance, accessibility, comfort, functionality and innovation. proposes a new model of sustainable housing, a modular concept, based on three modules of housing units and a greenhouse module – all these can be arranged and prefabricated according to the number of inhabitants.
The prototype is inspired by the Romanian hearth and encourages the formation of communities, in a context where social isolation is becoming an increasingly pressing challenge in society. the prototype encourages the circular economy, using the batteries of electric vehicles to create a sustainable storage system.VATRA also uses state-of-the-art technologies to keep the indoor environment comfortable, such as the introduction of natural light through fiber optics or intelligent control of the house.
You can find out more about EFdeN VATRA sustainable home, where technology and innovation are harmoniously combined with recycled and natural materials, by following the social accounts of the team – Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Website.
