Published October 17, 2015

Countless hours of designing, building, fine-tuning and fundraising over the past two and a half years have paid off for the more than 200 University at Buffalo students and faculty members who worked on the GRoW Home.

Their super-efficient solar-powered masterpiece placed second overall in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2015 Solar Decathlon. The final results were tabulated Saturday morning and the top three overall place finishers were announced during a ceremony inside a former military hangar in Orange County Great Park, where the 10-day competition has taken place.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled and prouder of the team. Watching them elevate their level of performance with every new milestone that we got to, they just rose to every challenge that they met, said Martha Bohm, GRoW Home faculty advisor and assistant professor of architecture.

UB GRoW Home Finishes Strong

• The GRoW Home team finished second with 941.191 points out of a possible 1,000, just over nine points behind first-place SURE House by the Stevens Institute of Technology.
• The house earned top-five placement in each of the 10 contests and won in the three categories. The GRoW Home was the only fully-functional home to come in under the competition's energy use threshold. 
• Of the non-juried, measured contest categories, UB's house fared best in Comfort Zone (first place with 95.719 out of 100 points), Commuting (tied for first with 100), Energy Balance (tied for first with 100) and Appliances (second with 99.523).
• In the five juried contests, the GRoW Home placed third in Communications, fourth in Market Appeal; and fifth in Architecture, Affordability and Engineering.