A University of Wollongong team has taken out an international prize for renewable energy-based house design.

The worldwide competition to design a zero-emissions solar house was taken out by the Wollongong team, who refitted a humble Australian fibro cottage.
It has been a brilliant introduction to the competition, with the first Australian entrant in the ten year history of the prize also taking out its inaugural title.
A 51 person team from the regional university built 'Flame House', a fibro-board cottage whose design will be most familiar to many Australians; it was made both to appeal to older residents on the verge of retirement and to create a home that outputs more energy than it consumes. 

Project Manager Lloyd Niccol says: “There are eight million homes existing in Australia, and quite a few hundred thousand fibro homes. Only 2 per cent of those are replaced every year, so if we do want to make a real impact...we thought the best way to do that is to retrofit our homes... we're trying to find some way to make an immediately and positive impact on our environment.. it's showing how you can bring the typical home built in the 1950s into the current modern age so it’s comfortable, it’s got all the amenities you require, and it produces more energy than it consumes.”

The home would reportedly cost about $300,000 to build in Australia and has a range of eco-friendly benefits.

"We've replaced the single glazing with double glazed unit. So really, that just drives down the initial use for heating and cooling of the home,” said Mr. Niccol, “we've then retrofitted two types of solar panels to the roof. We've then got a really, really innovative heating and ventilation system... called the photovoltaic thermal system, so we actually remove hot air from our solar panels, which we can then use to heat and cool the home.”

The award-winning abode is set to be shipped back to the university and disassembled for further research, funded by the Solar Decathlon prize.