Long lines, hot sun, and shrieking hordes of schoolchildren: this is not what getsolar expected of the DOE’s mid-October Solar Decathlon, being held this week on the Mall in Washington, DC, but that’s what we got. Getsolar sort of wished there had been cotton candy and skeeball, too, but we made do with with interactive learning exhibits and sporty electric vehicles instead.

The Decathlon showcases twenty homes built by domestic and international college teams, and judges them in a series of ten contests (like Architecture and Lighting).

Why the crowds? Other than school groups on field trips and the expected solar pros, many of the folks patiently waiting to see individual homes (lines on Monday were up to forty minutes long; opening weekend lines were twice that) came out of a simple desire to see what, exactly, a solar home looks like.

Getsolar encountered local university professors, green-thinking homeowners from around the country, high school students who had convinced their parents to road trip out for the event, and architects not yet in on the green revolution but curious to see what it’s all about.

So far, the team from Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, is in the lead, having won the coveted Architecture competition with a home that, in the strong sun in the middle of the afternoon, with all appliances running, was using about 800 watts of energy to keep pleasantly cool. Yep. That’s the equivalent of eight standard light bulbs. Plus, they have retractable floors!

Local contender University of Maryland is giving Darmstadt a run for their money, having come in 2nd place in Architecture and 1st place in Communications (in which contest Darmstadt did not rank in the top 3).

The Decathlon is far from over, with 8 contests still to be judged: stay tuned for more.