Bucharest is the host city for the 2023 Solar Decathlon Europe

Worldwide competition between university teams to design environmentally friendly houses

Bucharest has been chosen as the host city for the upcoming Solar Decathlon Europe 2023 (SDE23). It is a global competition in sustainable architecture that challenges innovative university teams to design, create, and run full-scale, energy-efficient houses that are technologically advanced, attractive, and environmentally responsible. The event will be held in September 2023.

The international student-driven solar competition is already receiving local funding from the Romanian Ministry of Environment, Water, and Forests, owing to its comprehensive and ongoing emphasis on technical innovation in construction and environmental protection challenges.

"We agreed from the outset to support Romania's candidacy in 2023 for organising the Solar Decathlon competition. Romania must be part of this revolution of sustainable constructions that also involves energy efficiency and prosumers," wrote Virgil Popescu, Minister of Energy, on his Facebook account.

Focusing on transforming and facing current challenges

As with every SDE version, the SDE23 in Bucharest is looking forward to receiving the ambitious projects of approximately 20 university teams, all willing to transform the European built environment with one that is even more suited to current challenges. Decathlete teams spend two years from entry to presentation planning, constructing, and communicating their prototype, before preparing for the two weeks of public visits, jury competitions, and monitoring.

The students organise their multidisciplinary teams on their own, acting as young professionals capable of covering every aspect of the launch of their full-scale project, from planning and constructing to interacting and marketing to finally running the prototype.

The Solar Decathlon competition, launched by the US Department of Energy in 2002, has challenged technical universities and student teams around the world to design, develop, and commission prototypes of effective and creative buildings using renewable energy sources. The initiative fosters collaboration between academia, the business, policymakers, professionals, students, and the general public in the pursuit of resource optimisation and behavioural change.