The Solar Decathlon has been well underway since Friday, and it’s good news so far for Team California, who is currently in the lead. (You can read Margaret’s short and sweet intro to Solar’s biggest competition here.) The biannual contest, which was designed to induce undergraduates to take a greater interest in a science or technology career, encourage clean energy development and raise public awareness of energy efficiency, runs for a week and a half and opens the students’ two years’ of work up to public scrutiny.

The houses are rated based on the quality of their Net Metering, Architecture, Market Viability, Engineering, Comfort Zone, Hot Water, Appliances, Home Entertainment, Lighting Design and Communications. In short, all the things most homeowners would want in a house. As of this article’s writing, California holds first place for Architecture and Hot Water, though a few categories have yet to announce a winner. Team California, which is composed of students from Santa Clara University and the California College of the Arts, is currently neck-to-neck with Team Germany, who is currently in second place and was 2007’s champion.

And now for a bit of background information, in case the prospect of designing and then building from scratch a zero-emissions, solar-powered house didn’t seem difficult enough:

Competing in the decathlon can be expensive. Teams receive $100,000 from the Energy Department after submitting their plans, but the real cost of building can be much higher.

Team California’s house, for example, cost about $450,000, said Kyle Belcher, who graduated in May with a degree in architecture. But plugging that monetary gap was part of the learning experience, he said.

“We were asked to do a lot of things that you aren’t usually asked to do while you’re in school,” Belcher said of the approximately 200 students who worked on the house. They had to persuade companies to sponsor them, make presentations to community groups, and undertake the design and construction of the project.

Keeping our fingers crossed—final judging is this upcoming Friday. Best of luck to all the participants!