The Solar Decathlon scoring was skewed heavily toward the house that produced the most excess energy (above/beyond what the house consumed 50 extra pts); Germany took advantage of that aspect using pv as an exterior cladding in a design that would never be used in the real world.  That said, their overall plan was very well conceived, but so were others—specifically Illinois, Ontario/BC and California.

If the scoring awarded the same points for everyone that produced more energy than they consumed, the results would have IMO identified the best overall home.  In that scenario here’s how the scores would have finished:

California 863
Illinois 860
Germany 858
Ontario B/C 840

These 4 homes were all a step ahead of the other competitors, imo, and deserve credit for a very strong effort.  As a footnote, Ontario BC’s poor home entertainment score was the difference between 858ish score which would have had the top 4 teams within 5 points – about ½ of 1%...

As a comedic note, Penn State installed Solyndra’s product over a green roof (plants)… Nice idea except that particular PV is designed to utilize light reflected *off* the roof (needs highly reflective roofing underneath).  You’ll note Penn State didn’t produce enough energy to offset their homes power consumption…

http://www.solardecathlon.org/scoring/bycontest.cfm?cid=10

Virginia Tech proudly advertised they used “recycled fly ash” in their concrete radiant flooring… When I pointed out fly ash was actually a concentrated combination of toxic metals including mercury, lead and arsenic, their advertising saw a sudden revision – deleting the fly ash reference…