The Energy Endeavour Foundation is pleased to announce that the German city of Wuppertal has been designated as the Host City for the Solar Decathlon Europe 2021 (SDE21).
In December 2018, a panel of expert Jury members met in Paris to evaluate Wuppertal’s full application. After careful examination of all documents, the Wuppertal proposal was unanimously approved by the Jury of the SDE21 Call for Cities.
The ever-thriving, award-winning worldwide Solar Decathlon competition challenges ambitious university teams to design, build and operate full-scale energy-efficient dwellings that are technically advanced, attractive and resource-responsible. With worldwide audiences the Solar Decathlon’s mandate is to reach students, industries, practitioners, researchers, policy makers and the public at large – all of those who care about energy literacy. As a next step in the SDE journey beyond the SDE19 in Szentendre, Hungary, the EEF and the SDE community celebrates Wuppertal in this exciting new edition of the SD competition in Europe.
The city of Wuppertal is embedded in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, in and around the Wupper valley and east of Düsseldorf. It represents the archetypal European city, and with a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land. Wuppertal is known for its steep slopes, its woods and parks, and its suspension railway; the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. It is the greenest city of Germany, with two-thirds green space of the total municipal area.
s d e 2 1 c o m p e t i t i o n
The SDE21 in Wuppertal will emphasize the challenges of sustainable energy transitions in the district’s urban context by exploring opportunities of sustainable architecture, renewable energy and state-of-theart engineering to transform the existing urban building stock. Rebuilding, evolving, building up and re-defining vacant lots are the central architectural tasks – resource efficiency, sufficiency, climate protection and closed-life-cycle construction are the central themes.
With its focus on urban energy transitions and further development of the existing housing stock with and for citizens, the SDE21 in Wuppertal is particularly relevant; Wuppertal is a transition city in which the change to sustainability is being addressed with bottom-up transformation processes. The SDE21 will present new milestones on this path towards sustainability in our urban environment.
Wuppertal will host a truly urban competition, right in the heart of the city. The site is located at the Mirker Quartier in Wuppertal; its character and its people provide the perfect backdrop for the competition, as the SDE21 will be part of a large-scale real laboratory in this city node.
The Solar Decathlon Europe 2021 partnership unites the local government of Wuppertal; the University of Wuppertal; the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment & Energy; Neue Effizienz, a corporation for resource efficiency; Utopiastadt, a creative transformation cluster; and the Wuppertal Marketing Agency. Endorsed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Energy Endeavour Foundation stewards the Solar Decathlon competition in Europe, working collaboratively with the DOE to perpetuate the Solar Decathlon Europe mission, mandate and values.
Wuppertal is aiming for a late summer SDE21; the application phase for university teams happened with a SDE21 Call for Teams, in March 2019. On January 16th 2020, the 18 selected Teams were officially announced. To find out out who made it through the selection phase, click here. Watch this space, as next milestones are coming up soon!
The Energy Endeavour Foundation is looking forward to a fruitful collaboration with the SDE21 Organisers in Wuppertal, sharing the objectives of an intrepid, responsible and successful edition of the Solar Decathlon in Europe. We look forward to a formidable international event.
Congrats Wuppertal! Gratulationen!
