UC Davis students will again compete in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon in 2017, the federal agency announced today.

The UC Davis team took home a first place win for affordability and commuting at the 2015 Decathlon held in Irvine this past October, where Team Aggie Sol showcased its zero net energy house designed for farmworkers. 

In the fall of 2017, the team will compete against 15 other collegiate teams, including UC Berkeley, the only other California university selected to participate. 

The teams will now begin a two-year process to design, construct, and test solar-powered homes that are affordable, innovative and highly energy efficient. They will then reassemble those homes at the competition site, which has not yet been announced.

The Solar Decathlon, as the name implies, involves 10 contests, including market appeal, architecture, engineering, communications, comfort, appliances and the level of energy produced versus energy consumed (energy balance).

Preparing for the Solar Decathlon, which the DOE holds every two years, is a campuswide, multidisciplinary effort involving team members from many academic backgrounds, including design, engineering and communications. The team is assisted along the way by UC Davis faculty and staff. Engineering professor Frank Loge, director of the UC Davis Center for Water-Energy Efficiency, will serve the team again as faculty adviser, a role he held for the 2015 competition.