Energy-Efficient Homes

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Comment by Faye on January 22, 2009 at 6:58pm

Please forward this to anyone you can / see fit! THANK YOU!

CONFERENCE IN TALLAHASSEE FEBRUARY 3rd, 2009!

The Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy (FARE), with support from the Florida Municipal Electric Association (FMEA) and the Alliance for Renewable Energy (ARE) are pleased to invite you to join us for a discussion on:

Effective Renewable Energy Policies: Stimulating Job Creation, Long Term Investments, and Improving Energy Security

Featuring discussions on Feed in Tariffs, Net Metering, Rebates, and Gainesville, FL., the first municipality in the United States to introduce a Feed in Tariff policy.

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
12-7 pm in Tallahassee
Doubletree Hotel
101 South Adams Street
Tallahassee, FL 32301
(850) 224-5000

The focus of the conference is the deployment of renewable energy in Florida resulting in jobs and energy security. Experts from around the world and participants from various stakeholder organizations will discuss policies to stimulate vast investment in renewable energy to increase energy security and job creation in Florida. Building on Governor Crist’s vision of 20% renewables by 2020, this event will provide first hand experiences from Florida, other states and European countries on what policies are most effective in achieving renewable targets.

Solar on every rooftop!

Panels will include:
· ‘Lessons from Europe and US States’ – Deployment of successful renewable policies.
· Costs vs. Benefits – The potential opportunity if policies are right.
· What energy policies will drive the market and bring jobs to Florida?
· Florida based implementation.
· Legislative Roundtable.

Key objectives:
· Explore green jobs and long term investments.
· Discuss Renewable Energy Payments, also known as Feed in Tariffs, regarding their significant potential to address climate change, create new jobs and support the renewable energy industry
· Further develop policies that have driven the clean technology markets.
· Update on the Renewable Portfolio Standard rules from the PSC.
· Strengthen and Support legislative initiatives in Florida.
· Explore various levels of initiatives adopted by utilities.
· Build coalitions and network.
· The Gainesville Solar Feed in Tariff.

Who will attend: State legislators, environmental and energy advocates, renewable energy industry representatives,local and state utilities, local government officials interested in green job economic development, nonprofits and foundations committed to a renewable energy future.

Speakers will include: leading environmental organizations, Florida State legislators, investors, renewable energy industry organizations and leading energy companies.

Featuring:
· Gainesville Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan
· Florida State Representative Keith Fitzgerald
· Paul Gipe, Alliance for Renewable Energy
· Toby Couture, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
· Dr. Murray Cameron, Phoenix Solar
· Jerry Karnas, Environmental Defense Fund
· Barry Moline, Florida Municipal Electric Association
· Ed Regan, Gainesville Regional Utilities
· Christy Herig, Solar Electric Power Association
· Jerome Guillet, Head of Energy, Dexia

For registration and hotel info on this event please contact Faye Roller at faye@FAREnergy.org or visit www.FAREnergy.org

Comment by Bruce Eric Montgomery on August 30, 2008 at 12:53pm

SPECIAL REPORT: ALTERNATIVE ENERGY POWERS UP

Enter the New American Dream House

This Oregon couple's home hits a standard few others have achieved: It's completely energy self-sufficient. Here's how
Four years ago, Linda Rose and her husband, Eldon Haines, realized it might soon be time to consolidate -- and reinvent -- their family living arrangements. The retired couple lives in Eugene, Ore., where they have to negotiate 46 stairs from curb to doorstep every time they venture out. So the couple decided to build their own version of a dream retirement home in Rose's daughter's backyard in Portland, Ore.

The two life-long environmentalists didn't want just another house, however. The pair already burned old newspapers and cardboard in their wood stove and recycled or reused all plastic. They're proud to boast that they have generated two garbage cans of waste a year for the past 20 years.

EARTHLY PURSUIT. Haines, a nuclear physicist, has worked for decades as a consultant to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, most recently on the Mars Odyssey unmanned spacecraft. But he's also known nationwide as the inventor of the copper cricket, a solar water heater. "My real-life interest is the environment, not planet Mars," he likes to point out.

So it was only natural that the couple set out to build a home that generates all the energy it needs to run appliances, heating, and cooling. It's a pioneering effort in Oregon and one of the first in the nation.

These so-called net-energy homes go a step beyond the "zero-energy homes" promoted by the federal government, explains Charlie Stephens, residential energy specialist at the Oregon Energy Dept. in Salem. To qualify as zero-energy, a home need only generate enough electricity for 70% to 80% of its needs. The Rose House (that's what the owners like to call it), completed this summer, is energy self-sufficient, period.

MORE AFFORDABLE Such homes are at the cutting edge of alternative energy. Fewer than 500 zero-energy homes exist in the U.S. today, and net-energy homes are even rarer. One being constructed in the oceanfront community of Canon Beach, Ore., will store hot water in wells drilled through basalt several hundred feet down. The idea is to store heat in the stone to be siphoned into the house later. Clever as this system is, it costs several thousand dollars extra. You won't find one in the aisles of Home Depot (HD ) or Lowes (LOW ).

The Rose House takes a different design path. It's plainer and more affordable than most such experiments. In fact, this one-story, green-colored home with a steepled roof looks deceptively normal. Set in a quiet residential neighborhood, it's surrounded by tall sunflowers and beds of tomatoes and squash. It only has 800 square feet of living space: two bedrooms and one bathroom.



The Rose House's owners received $27,750 worth of government grants from the likes of the Energy Trust of Oregon for the construction. With the grants figured in, they estimate they spent about $146 per square foot to build the home. That's 22% more than Portland's going price of $120 per square foot for a standard home. But because Rose and Haines will have no energy bills to pay, they'll save hundreds of dollars each year.

HIGHER RESALE VALUES. The economics might turn out to be even more favorable as utilities start to pay for electricity that residential customers generate. In Tennessee solar-home owners receive 15 cents per kilowatt hour produced (an average solar home produces 6,000 kilowatt hours a year). They pay only 6 cents per kilowatt hour that they buy from the utility. That's one of the more generous deals in the nation.

Builders in California have found that energy-efficient homes have a higher resale value than traditional homes, says John Suppes, president of Clarum Homes, which expects to have built 277 zero-energy homes in California by yearend.

A June survey of 600 Californians conducted for Environment California Research & Policy Center indicated that 63% of respondents said they would pay more for a solar home.

In Oregon, the Rose House doubles as a research lab, monitored by scientists from Oregon Institute of Technology, among others, and some of its features could show up in new housing developments to be built in the state capital of Salem in 2006. Sensors dispersed throughout the home measure temperature of the exterior and interior walls and on the roof. Energy generation and consumption is constantly monitored. For the next two years this data will be fed to researchers and builders throughout the state -– and soon onto the Web for anyone to see.

HOT AIR AT WORK. The reason for the study, in part, is to motivate more builders to construct energy-efficient homes. The Rose House was recently featured on a local "Build It Green!" tour, showcasing 20 Portland homes incorporating innovative environmental ideas. "My hope is that anyone would be able to see themselves in it," says Clark Brockman, project manager at SERA Architects in Portland, who designed the house. "That they don't think of a net-energy house as something out of a sci-fi movie."

Space-age technology is certainly at the core of the experiment. Part of the house's south-facing roof is covered with 300 square feet of solar panels that should produce 6,000 kilowatt hours a year (a typical American household spends 2,000 kilowatt hours a year on lighting alone). A special system sucks in hot air from underneath the solar panels -- it's typically heated to more than 100 degrees -- and uses it to heat water and air inside the house.

In addition, Haines's invention, the copper cricket, uses the sun's energy during the summer to heat water. Together these contraptions should produce enough hot water for a hot shower.

"MORE ALIVE." A special energy-recovery ventilator -- a file-cabinet-size box -- recaptures heat leaving the house and recycles it. A big part of creating an energy-efficient home is an air-tight design. In a typical older home the whole volume of air escapes through cracks and crannies in less than an hour. In an energy-efficient home, walls, roof, and foundation are designed to reduce this air exchange to once every three hours or even longer.

The Rose House features so-called staggered-stud walls, which prevent heat from leaving the house and the cold from entering it. And its special air-exchange system prevents the house from becoming too stuffy. "You can almost feel the house breathing in the night," says Haines. "It feels more alive."

Haines hopes that as more people see his house, they'll feel it, too, and follow his lead.

Comment by Christian Milaster on August 22, 2008 at 12:32pm

Paul Saia - contact Rich at www.sunswarmth.com. He and his partner designed and built a dome home in 2005/06 which also has solar hot water, photovoltaics on a tracker, a small 1kW wind generator, and radiant in-floor heating. Also check out
these pictures, this article and this one.

Comment by Jason Faith on July 20, 2008 at 3:04pm

Great resource of green-home resources:
http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/