With the Selficient concept, the HU student team qualified for the final of the Solar Decathlon, a competition that took place in October 2017. The competition, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, challenged student teams from all over the world to design and build a house run on solar energy. The interdisciplinary team of Hogeschool Utrecht consisted of over 40 students from more than 12 institutes. They have organized themselves professionally and the management was in their hands. 14 Teachers were closely involved in guiding the team.

The students began the construction of the first prototype of the Selficient house on the ENECO campus in April-17. The ENECO campus is a former energy plant, now used for innovations aimed at creating an energy neutral, modular and circular future. The house was then disassembled and shipped in containers to the United States to participate in the competition. 30 students and a number of teachers traveled to Denver to build the house in the Solar Village and to prepare it for the competition.

In the final the Selficient team won the public prize, second prize for 'Market potential' and third prize for 'Water efficiency'. In total, the house was assessed in ten parts including technology, innovation, comfort and communication of the concept.

After the competition, the disassembled Selficient house was shipped home to the Netherlands. One of the goals from the multi-year program Wonen 3.0 of the Center of Expertise Smart Sustainable Cities (SSC) is to give the Selficient house a prominent place on the Utrecht Science Park as an icon and research project. The ambition is also to participate more often with students in challenges such as the Solar Decathlon and to embed such innovative and interdisciplinary student projects in mainstream education.

For more information about this project, please contact Meine Jansma.