Peking University, Aug. 21, 2013:  On August 11, the Closing Ceremony of Solar Decathlon China  (SDC) 2013 was held in Solar Palace of Datong. Vice President Li Yansong from Peking University (PKU) and Dean Zhang Dongxiao from the College of Engineering attended the ceremony along with representatives from other related organizations. They also visited the solar houses afterwards and talked with the decathletes.

After ten days’ fierce competition, the overall scores for each team came out finally. It was announced that the first, second and third places went to Team UOW from the University of Wollongong in Australia, Team SCUT from South China University of Technology, and Team Sweden from the Chalmers University of Technology. Each announcement was accompanied by great applauses and joyful screams of the decathletes.

On the closing ceremony, the contests results for architecture and solar application and other five performance-based contest results were also announced. Team UOW, Team Israel and Team SCUT won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the contest of architecture, while Team UOW, Team Sweden and Team THFL (Tsinghua University, China and Florida University) received trophies in the contest of solar application.

The ceremony presider Dr. Yu Pingrong is director of the SDC organizing committee and faculty in the College of Engineering of PKU. He concluded SDC 2013 with the following words, “In the past three years, our international competition has enabled students from over ten countries to work together. It’s really an achievement, and I feel absolutely proud of that. The young people of today may become future leaders of tomorrow, in their respective fields. I hope SDC 2013 has played a part in their way of growth.”

The house “Etho” designed and built by the joint team of Peking University- University of Illinois didn’t participate in the contest; nevertheless it received huge attention from the public: it’s estimated that over 200,000 people visited the solar houses during August 3-10.

After the closing ceremony, the PKU delegation paid a visit to “Etho”, the Illawarra Flame of Team UOW and E-CONCAVE of Team SCUT and talked with the decathletes.

Li spoke highly of SDC, “This is a very good opportunity for students as members from different disciplines could collaborate with each other in many areas. I am very impressed with the houses. Students have adopted many advanced ideologies. More importantly, it provides an all-round boost of their skills, both in technology, communication, marketing and construction. I think the event has great significance. It’s an honor of PKU to undertake this great event.”

Dean Zhang added that the event is also educational for the great public, through which they get to know more about the development of new energy and may understand that solar energy could be in daily utilization and power their homes.

The houses will remain open to the public till Tuesday, after which they will be disassembled and transported out of Datong.

Edited by: Zhang Jiang

Source: College of Engineering