News
Building Dashboard® featured in U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon 2009
October 15, 2009
Washington, D.C. - Team California's 'Refract House,' featuring Lucid's Building Dashboard®, wins 3rd place overall and 1st place in Communications during the U.S. Department of Energy's international Solar Decathlon 2009 competition on the National Mall.
Lucid worked with Team California from Santa Clara University to make Building Dashboard® a component of their successful communications stategy. The Communications category encompasses: information presentation, including graphics, photos, website organization and on-site displays; delivery of team messages to target audiences and people of all abilities; and innovation of methods to engage audiences, including website visitors and people waiting to tour the home. The winner of this category was determined by a jury of website development and public relations experts.
From the Refract House website:
"Refract House uses Lucid Design Group’s Building Dashboard® to monitor and display the home’s real time, and historical, energy and water consumption levels. The monitoring is meant to aid the homeowners into recognizing their consumption habits, such as how much hot water they consume while taking a shower, and then make energy and water conscious decisions.
"The main goal of a solar home is to be carbon neutral, which means our home's energy usage does not contribute to global carbon emissions. The monitoring system provides this information, about the net energy of the home, as well as a breakdown of where energy is being consumed in the home. By understanding where energy is consumed, homeowners can adjust their lifestyles to consume less.
"... Building Dashboard® provides a system to easily view the monitoring data. The data is posted on a user friendly website that allows homeowners to select units of water and energy consumption that they best understand. The website lets one view the current home conditions as well as historical data, helping identify lifestyle trends and improvements. Monitoring data can also be accessed through the Refract House iPhone application."
Visit Refract House's Technology page >>
Learn more about Solar Decathlon >>
About Lucid Design Group
Lucid Design Group, Inc. is a privately held cleantech software company, founded in 2004, and a pioneer in providing real-time information feedback to teach, inspire behavior change and save energy and water resources in buildings. Over the past six years, Lucid's team has endeavored to make resource use visible, accessible and engaging so that building occupants have the data visualization and communication tools to manage and reduce their consumption.
Today, tens of thousands of people live and work in schools, companies, community and commercial buildings and homes enhanced by Lucid's web-based Building Dashboard® technology. Now in its fourth generation, the intuitive Building Dashboard® user interface allows occupants to connect personal electricity, water and natural gas consumption with the actions and events that take place within buildings.
