First Photos From the European Solar Decathlon

An anonymous reader writes "The 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe kicked off today in Madrid, Spain, with a stunning array of solar-powered prefab homes. Seventeen teams from around the globe are battling it out in the center of the city to see who has the most efficient solar-powered and eco-friendly house. Just as in the competition in Washington DC, the teams will be graded on minimal energy use, innovative architecture and engineering, sustainability, and more. Check out these exclusive photos from the event for a first look at the most exciting houses in this year's competition."

Re:Decathlon

[cappp]

It's a little hard to find on their website but each team competes in 10 areas hence, decathalon. You can find the details here http://www.sdeurope.org/competicion_pruebas_menu.htm?lang=en [sdeurope.org] but in short they're judged on:

architecture, construction and engineering, solar systems and hot water, energy balance, comfort conditions, usage, communications and social media, industrialization and market viability, innovation, sustainability

Major Solar Energy Marketing Campaign in Progress?

[Hadlock]

A few days ago my buddy emailed me with some infographic [tumblr.com] about "how few" solar panels it would take to power the entire planet. Now this. I'll agree there's money to be made in Solar, and it's green(ish), but has anyone else noticed just a huge marketing push in the last few weeks for solar? I guess it makes more sense to market solar energy during the summer (in the northern hemisphere) but why now? It's convenient that the BP oil spill is happening now, but this sort of thing takes lots of perpetration, time and money. I'm guessing it's in response to the Cape Wind project [wikipedia.org] finally being approved? Anyone have any more info on why NOW they're doing such a large marketing push for solar? Is wind that big of a threat to solar?
 
It's interesting that they're doing this in Spain, where wind support is popular and has long had government support, with several large installations already.