Smart Homes and Smart Developments - Going green and net zero energy

Introducing the first affordable net-zero, climate 5 smart home to live smart by combining affordable green building with the latest in smart home technology.
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The home is also three times more water-efficient than a typical U. Honda Smart Home, construction of which began in April , will serve as a residence for a member of the UC Davis community, whose selection will soon be announced. The fully-furnished home comes equipped with a Honda Fit EV battery electric vehicle for daily transportation. In addition to showcasing Honda's vision for sustainable, zero-carbon living and personal mobility, the home will function as a living laboratory where the company, along with researchers from UC Davis and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Honda's environmental efforts extend beyond personal mobility to address two of the primary sources of carbon dioxide emissions: Together, energy used to power homes and light duty vehicles contributes to approximately 44 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Technology that enables distributed renewable energy generation to supply power to homes and cars seamlessly is one of the key potential pathways to address climate change. Opened in , West Village is home to the university's internationally recognized research centers focused on energy efficiency, sustainability and transportation.

Honda Smart Home implements Honda's home energy management system, or HEMS, a proprietary hardware and software system that monitors, controls and optimizes electrical generation and consumption throughout the home's microgrid. A 10kWh battery energy storage system in the garage, using the same lithium-ion cells that are used in the Honda Fit EV, allows stored solar energy to be used at night, when household demand typically peaks and electric vehicles are usually charged.

Honda's HEMS leverages the battery to balance, shift and buffer loads to minimize the home's impact to the electric grid. The system also enables Honda to evaluate the second life, or reuse, of EV batteries in grid applications, home-to-grid connectivity and other concepts. Honda's HEMS is also capable of improving grid reliability by automatically responding to demand response signals and providing other grid services. If the electricity grid is overloaded, for example, Honda Smart Home is capable of shedding its load and even supplying power back to the grid.

This type of smart grid connectivity will enable the mass deployment of electric vehicles and renewable energy without sacrificing grid reliability. Solar photovoltaics —A 9. All of the energy for space heating, space cooling, ventilation, lighting, hot water, appliances and consumer loads, in addition to the transportation energy for the Honda Fit EV, is supplied by the solar panels on the home.

Electric vehicle charging —The Honda Fit EV included with the home has been modified to accept DC power directly from the home's solar panels or stationary battery, eliminating up to half of the energy that is typically lost to heat during DC-to-AC and AC-to-DC power conversion. When the solar panels are generating electricity at full capacity, the vehicle can fully recharge in approximately two hours directly from sunlight.

Geothermal radiant heating and cooling —In homes and cars, heating and air conditioning systems consume significant amounts of energy. In the ground beneath the Honda Smart Home's back yard, eight foot-deep boreholes allow a geothermal heat pump to harness the ground's relatively stable thermal sink to heat and cool the home's floors and ceiling throughout the year.

Researchers from UC Davis will evaluate the performance of the system to determine its adaptability to mainstream use. Pozzolan infused and post-tensioned concrete—Concrete accounts for approximately 5 percent of global, man-made CO2 emissions. This large CO2 footprint is a result of producing cement—the "glue" of concrete—by heating limestone to more than 1, degrees Celsius. This heating requires the burning of fossil fuels, while the chemical reaction itself also releases CO2.

Utilities have expressed concern that states that maintain Net Metering laws may saddle non-ZNE homes with higher utility costs, as those homeowners would be responsible for paying for grid maintenance while ZNE home owners would theoretically pay nothing if they do achieve ZNE status. This creates potential equity issues, as currently, the burden would appear to fall on lower-income households. A possible solution to this issue is to create a minimum base charge for all homes connected to the utility grid, which would force ZNE home owners to pay for grid services independently of their electrical use.

Additional concerns exist that local distribution as well as larger transmission grids have not been designed to convey electricity in two directions, which may be necessary as higher levels of distributed energy generation come on line. Overcoming this barrier could require extensive upgrades to the electrical grid, however this is not believed to be a major problem until renewable generation reaches much higher levels of penetration than currently realized.

Wide acceptance of zero-energy building technology may require more government incentives or building code regulations, the development of recognized standards, or significant increases in the cost of conventional energy. The Google photovoltaic campus and the Microsoft kilowatt photovoltaic campus relied on U.

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Federal, and especially California, subsidies and financial incentives. Led by the CEO of United Technologies and the Chairman of Lafarge , the organization has both the support of large global companies and the expertise to mobilize the corporate world and governmental support to make ZEB a reality.


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Their first report, a survey of key players in real estate and construction, indicates that the costs of building green are overestimated by percent. Survey respondents estimated that greenhouse gas emissions by buildings are 19 percent of the worldwide total, in contrast to the actual value of roughly 40 percent. Those who commissioned construction of passive houses and zero-energy homes over the last three decades were essential to iterative, incremental, cutting-edge, technology innovations.

Much has been learned from many significant successes, and a few expensive failures.

Honda smart home offers vision for zero carbon living

The zero-energy building concept has been a progressive evolution from other low-energy building designs. Among these, the Canadian R and the German passive house standards have been internationally influential.


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Collaborative government demonstration projects, such as the superinsulated Saskatchewan House, and the International Energy Agency's Task 13 , have also played their part. Gas for cooking at the same level. Many well known universities have professed to want to completely convert their energy systems off of fossil fuels. The very idea that one could convert a whole campus off of fossil fuels has to date only been theoretical. Capitalizing on the continuing developments in both Photovoltaics and Geothermal heat pump technologies, and in the advancing Electric Battery field, complete conversion to a carbon free energy solution is now possible.

An example of this is in the Net Zero Foundation's proposal at MIT to take that campus completely off fossil fuel use. The goal of green building and sustainable architecture is to use resources more efficiently and reduce a building's negative impact on the environment. Zero energy buildings may or may not be considered "green" in all areas, such as reducing waste, using recycled building materials, etc.

Because of the design challenges and sensitivity to a site that are required to efficiently meet the energy needs of a building and occupants with renewable energy solar, wind, geothermal, etc. Many green building certification programs do not require a building to have net zero energy use, only to reduce energy use a few percentage points below the minimum required by law. Green Globes involves check lists that are measurement tools, not design tools. Inexperienced designers or architects may cherry-pick points to meet a target certification level, even though those points may not be the best design choices for a specific building or climate.

The joint international research and demonstration activities are divided in subtasks. The scope encompasses new and existing residential and non-residential buildings located within the climatic zones of the participating countries. In Australia , researchers have recently developed a new approach to the construction of visually-clear solar energy harvesting windows suitable for industrialization and applications in net-zero energy buildings. The average size of Australian rooftop solar PV system has exceeded 3.

In Belgium there is a project with the ambition to make the Belgian city Leuven climate-neutral in The purpose of the centre is through development of integrated, intelligent technologies for the buildings, which ensure considerable energy conservations and optimal application of renewable energy, to develop zero energy building concepts.

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In cooperation with the industry, the centre will create the necessary basis for a long-term sustainable development in the building sector. Features include passive solar building design and other green technologies. It uses both modest energy efficiency, and a big distributed renewable energy generation from both solar and wind. The tower is receiving economic support from government subsidies that are now funding many significant fossil-fuel-free efforts.

In , Scandinavian Homes [62] launched the world's first standardised passive house in Ireland, this concept makes the design and construction of passive house a standardised process.

Conventional low energy construction techniques have been refined and modelled on the PHPP Passive House Design Package to create the standardised passive house. Building offsite allows high precision techniques to be utilised and reduces the possibility of errors in construction.

Honda smart home offers vision for zero carbon living

In the same company started a project to use 23, liters of water in a seasonal storage tank, [63] heated up by evacuated solar tubes throughout the year, with the aim to provide the house with enough heat throughout the winter months thus eliminating the need for any electrical heat to keep the house comfortably warm. The system is monitored and documented by a research team from The University of Ulster and the results will be included in part of a PhD thesis.

In Cork institute of Technology started renovation work on its building stock to develop a net zero energy building retrofit. The renewable energy — photovoltaic combination is expected to result in a net zero energy requirement from the grid. The building is currently undergoing a fine tuning process by the local energy management team. Findings are expected to be published in a year. The purpose is to support the current low carbon cities program in Malaysia.

This earth-friendly building gives back more energy than it uses. All materials in the building were tested against strict requirements laid down by the WWF and the architect. The main objective of the FME-centres is to contribute to the development of good technologies for environmentally friendly energy and to raise the level of Norwegian expertise in this area. In addition, they should help to generate new industrial activity and new jobs. Over the next eight years, the FME-Centre ZEB will develop competitive products and solutions for existing and new buildings that will lead to market penetration of zero emission buildings related to their production, operation and demolition.

Singapore 's first zero-energy building was launched at the inaugural Singapore Green Building Week. In December , the government announced that by all new homes in England will be zero energy buildings. To encourage this, an exemption from Stamp Duty Land Tax is planned. In Wales the plan is for the standard to be met earlier in , although it is looking more likely that the actual implementation date will be However, as a result of a unilateral change of policy published at the time of the March budget, a more limited policy is now planned which, it is estimated, will only mitigate two thirds of the emissions of a new home.

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The two centers, located at the University of Central Florida and Washington State University , will serve 17 states, providing information and training on commercially available energy-efficient technologies. Energy Independence and Security Act of [74] created through funding for a new solar air conditioning research and development program, which should soon demonstrate multiple new technology innovations and mass production economies of scale. The Solar Energy Tax Credits have been extended until the end of Solar power in the United States.

By Executive Order , U. If implemented, the Energy Free Home Challenge would have provided increased incentives for improved technology and consumer education about zero energy buildings coming in at the same cost as conventional housing. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an international competition that challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house.

Achieving Zero Net Energy balance is a major focus of the competition. This data covers April through September And best of all, please send any questions or interesting findings to me at hondasmarthome AT hna. Overall, water consumption was lower than expected, thanks largely to the thrifty water habits of our occupant family.

To put this in perspective, the average American family of four uses gallons of water per day, or , gallons per year, according to the EPA. Our occupant family is consuming only around 85 gallons per day! The monitoring data shows that while clothes washing and toilets consumed about the same amount of water as the best practice construction, our occupants were able to slash consumption via showers, baths and sinks, without sacrificing their quality of life.

Low-flow fixtures play a role, but so does the conservation mindset that Stu, Susan and their family have embraced. The Governor was very gracious and knew quite a bit about energy efficiency and green building strategies. Architecture materials including all plans and 3D models , specification sheets, and monitoring data are licensed under CC BY 4. Here are three key findings: Comparison to a hypothetical air-source heat pump ASHP If we imagine swapping our geothermal heat pump for an air-source heat pump, this analysis shows that the total efficiency of an air source system should be pretty similar.

Wet bore versus dry bore performance and temperature profiles The dry bores have an average capacity of about 0.