Engineering systems in the gable home: A passive, net-zero, solar-powered house for the U. S. Department of Energy's 2009 Solar Decathlon

The Solar Decathlon is a biannual competition sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy, where twenty university teams are selected to design, build and operate a sustainable, energy-efficient, solar-powered house. This paper describes the design and performance of the electrical systems deployed in the house constructed by the University of Illinois: a 9 kW solar photovoltaic system, custom power monitoring system, and a power-line communication based home control and automation system.