The curved roof criterion of Team Canada’s 2011 entry to the Solar Decathlon certainly presented a unique design challenge!  Some of the early designs of the home actually had slope changes in the North-South direction as well as the East-West direction – thankfully, the project was simplified when the students settled on the current design.  Simplified, but still not all that simple! We still had to work with angle changes from East to West and a significant cantilever of about 1.5m at the bottom East and West corners. (more…)

Construction of Team Canada’s entry to the Solar Decathlon, the Cenovus TRTL, is now complete and the competition has started!  Team Canada’s unique shape and design set it apart from the competition – the TRTL is the only home on site with a curved solar array.  Here is a great photo of the site with the completed homes: (more…)

I had a great time this past weekend at the Montgomery Fall Fair. We had our off-grid solar trailer on site and were providing power for a cotton candy machine, the music and PA system. The Bownesians, a local Bowness group, heard in advance that they would be powered by our solar trailer so wrote a song about it! I caught some of it on video: (more…)