More than a thousand students have arrived to the city of Benguerir in central Morocco from all over the world on Wednesday 22 to participate in Solar Decathlon Africa contest.

The students that have gathered from 20 countries came to Benguerir to begin the phase of construction and assembly of modern energy-efficient houses powered solely by solar energy.

This competition is the world’s largest student competition in the world and is part of an initiative dubbed Solar Decathlom Africa. The initiative is hosted under the patronage of His Majesty King Mohamed VI and consists of building a solar village that is made up of of smart, sustainable homes.

According to the French-language news source Le Matin, representatives of the Institute of Research in Solar Energy and New Energies (IRESEN), the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and the Province of Rhamna jointly launched this phase of the competition.

The participating students will have to complete the construction before the opening date on September 13th, that is, they only have three of work. Then, a panel of Decathlon professionals will assess them based on 10 examinations, scored on a scale of 100 points. The team that builds the smart homes that score the highest total will be announced winners.

This gigantic project came about as a result of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2016 between Morocco’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Sustainable Development, IRESEN and the US Department of Energy.

The competition aligns with the American contest standards while having local and regional characteristics.