Head on over to West Potomac Park and you will find teams of students from all over the world, putting the finishing touches on two years of work. Now in its fifth edition, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon brings together teams of university students to create and build houses run solely on solar energy.

The aim of the Solar Decathlon is to educate homeowners, building professionals and students to the advancement and accessibility of energy efficient appliances and construction — both of which are good for the planet and your wallet.

This year, nineteen teams were chosen to build their homes and compete in ten different categories each worth 100 points. A new addition for the 2011 contest: homes will be judged on a new category, affordability, where full points will be rewarded to the teams with housing costs at or below $250,000. The team with the most points from all ten categories at the end of the competition wins.

Throughout next week, the houses will be open to the public for tours, where teams can showcase their designs and energy innovations. The last overall winner, Team Germany, is not in this year’s competition, but runner-up University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will surely be talked up as the favorite to win the title. (And don’t forget the “hometown” favorite, University of Maryland.)

After the competition, many of the houses are sold for private use or stay with a team’s university to help further research. One house from this year has plans to stay in town after the scores are tabulated and the winners announced — the Empowerhouse, created and built by Parsons The New School for Design and Stevens Institute of Technology in partnership with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C. and the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, will live on as an actual home in the Northeast neighborhood of Deanwood.

One of the goals of the Empowerhouse was to create a home that would have a lasting effect on the D.C. community, as well as help Habitat for Humanity change its building practices. When it moves to Deanwood, the house will produce all of its energy needs and it will be the first Passive House in the District.

The Solar Decathlon kicks off this Friday and runs through Sunday the 2nd. Houses will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekends. Free shuttle bus service from Smithsonian Metro station will be provided during the event and will run every 15 minutes.