Putting Together the Sustainability Puzzle at Cornell

September 26, 2009

Leadership Development Talk by Dominic Frongillo, ‘05

Hosted by: Sustainability Hub & Cornell’s Office of Environmental Compliance and Sustainability

Video coverage provided by Corey Belaief & Milos Balac

Fossil fuels, leading emitters of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change, produce 71 percent of America’s energy.  The emission of these gases is linked to the death of about 30,000 Americans per year.

In order to encourage the reduction of dependence on fossil fuels, a team of over 150 Cornell students from all seven undergraduate colleges and the Johnson School of Business, along with 20 faculty members, has been assembled to take on the task of building a house powered entirely by solar panels.

“The beauty of this competition is that it is one of the truly interdisciplinary organizations,” said Chris Werner, a leader of Cornell’s Solar Decathlon team.

The house will be entered in the U.S. Department of Energy’s global ‘Solar Decathlon,’ a competition in which 20 college and university teams work together to design and build energy efficient, effective, and attractive homes.

The competition, which will be held during October at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is intended to educate student participants and the general public about the benefits of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and green building technologies, while also helping solar energy technologies enter the marketplace faster.

The team at Cornell is divided into four core groups, including architecture, engineering, marketing and communications, and business, all of which are then divided into smaller sub groups. The architecture and engineering teams work dutifully to design, construct, and install electricity, but not everyone on the team is directly involved with the development of the house.

Hotelies provide dinners in the house during the competition to display the house’s functionality, the business team puts on fundraisers, the communication team markets the house, and landscapers install landscaping which ties into the sustainability of the house.

“Everyone can be involved, we pride ourselves on that,” Werner said.

Cornell entered a house in the 2005 and 2007 competitions, taking second place in 2005.

The design studio for 2009 was completed in May 2008, and now consists of 50 people.  Architecture students in an independent study class procure materials, conduct research, and finalize details, while students in a Design and Environmental Analysis (DEA) class tackle interior design and building.

“Solar Decathlon is an outlet for many architecture students,” Werner said.  “I am in this school [College of Architecture] because I am interested in sustainable design.”

The architecture team began the design process by looking at different types of architectural work, such as wind tunnels, teepees, and houses that were dug out of the earth.

“We wanted to do something different, something that hadn’t been done at the competition before,” said Irina Chernyakova, a design team leader.  “We didn’t want to create a box, we wanted to rethink the sustainable strategy.”

After observing many works of architecture, members of the design team made their own drawings and submitted them.  A closed jury chose three of the submitted ideas.  Groups of four took about a month to develop blueprints for each house, and the jury then chose one out of the three.

“By the end of fall 2008, they had the finished drawing and had begun construction, which will go on until the competition,” Chernyakova said.

The design that was finally chosen consists of three modular units that open up to a central courtyard.  The courtyard is defined by perimeter columns and a photovoltaic – solar powered – canopy.

The conditioned living units surrounding the courtyard are steel-clad cylinders that are modeled after silos, agricultural works native to upstate New York.  These silo-like structures have a steel structure and exterior, forming the kitchen, bedroom, and living room.

“We wanted each of the programmed areas to be a different size, but because of competition purposes and regulations, all are the same size and height,” Chernyakova said.  “This works out better for construction anyway because it’s faster to build them all the same size.”

The most sustainable feature of the house is the 40 GE photovoltaic solar panels each 200W that cover the roof of the house, producing more energy than the house needs for all its electric needs.

The energy that is not used can be sold back to the power grid.  Typically, houses with solar panels produce excess energy in the summer that can be sold to the grid.  In the winter, when less energy can be extracted from the sun, power can be bought back from the grid.

“We want to prove to the general public that solar technology is a viable alternative to fossil fuels,” Werner said.  “Fossil fuel prices stand only to go up in price and solar technology can only go down. As solar panels become mass produced, they will become cheaper.”

Before going to D.C., the house will be taken to the New York State Fair in Syracuse, which is held from the end of August to the beginning of September.  There, nearly a million people will see the house.  The hope is that it will help people to realize the future of solar technologies.

“Cornell is a land grant school, and this project really fulfills the mission of promoting what is New York State,” Werner said.

This house will show millions of people that it is possible for a functional, attractive, and comfortable house to produce zero emissions.  The initial cost of solar, although high, can usually be paid off over a few years time.

As natural resources become scarcer, prices will rise, and clean energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydropower will become the smartest and most cost-effective choices.

The time to transition from fossil fuels to renewable resources has arrived, and Cornell’s Solar Decathlon team is taking on a huge role in supporting this movement.

Author: Andrea Sanders