During a recent trip down to Washington, DC I stopped by the National Mall to tour the astonishingly energy efficient homes on display as part of the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathalon.  The Solar Decathlon is one of the DOE’s signature programs to promote cutting edge design and green techonology.

The Solar Decathlon will be on display October 9-13 and 15-18.  The event features homes built by 20 teams from colleges and unversities all over the world.  Each team had to transport their solar house tyo the competition site and virtually rebuild them in the solar village from scratch.  The solar village will even be connected to a micro-grid and the houses will be able to push extra energy back into Washington, DC!  You can learn more about this wonderful event at the official Solar Decathlon site.

This particular home looks like it would fit right in in upstate New York farm country with modules shaped like silos.  Makes sense – this home was designed by the Cornell University team, pride of Ithaca, New York!

At Capitol Lighting we’ve joined the Green Movement with large solar panel installations on the roofs of three of our nine gallery showrooms.  We encourage all of our customers to consider the environment when planning their lighting purchases.  Capitol offers a wide range of energy efficient lighting products, which you can view in our Green Living section.