On-the-spot France
Versailles solar-powered homes contrast with Sun King's chateau
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Play - 03:59
For two weeks you can go to see the houses of the future, in Versailles, south-west of Paris. In the shadow of Louis XIV's Chateau, teams of university students from all over the world have built full-sized models of sustainable homes. Though they are somewhat more modest than the Chateau, in a way they pay homage to Louis XIV, who was known as the Sun King. Because all of these houses are solar-powered. This is the Solar Decathlon, an architecture competition started by the US department of energy, which has now caught on elsewhere.
