ZETA to open doors to 'net zero' home
There's a movement afoot to make homes greener, but the impact will be limited if only wealthy people can afford them. Start-up ZETA Communities is trying to expand that movement's reach by making market-priced, "net zero" multifamily homes.
In the next two weeks, the San Francisco-based company expects to complete its first demonstration building, a town house in Oakland, Calif. Using a variety of design choices, such as a passive solar design and very efficient windows, the energy load on the town houses will be 60 percent of what a comparable-size traditional building would require. Solar panels meet all its electrical needs.
The Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy Laboratory will be studying performance data on the building.
An artist's rendition of planned net-zero town houses going up in Oakland.
(Credit: ZETA Communities)ZETA Communities can't claim it's able to build net-zero homes--buildings that produce as much energy as they consume--in every locale. But its construction techniques already work in California, according to CEO Naomi Porat, who founded the company last year. It has a pipeline of projects including a 30-unit student apartment project that is projected to cost 20 percent less than current construction methods.
So what's its formula? The company prefabricates multifamily buildings in a factory to save on construction costs. The buildings themselves are very well sealed and insulated, which lowers the heating and cooling load. Also, the company has developed a control system to manage on-site energy generation and keep track of consumers' electricity usage.
"This is disruptive technology in the sense that these net-zero homes at these prices are not possible without a control system that optimizes all the mechanical systems," said Porat.
ZETA, which stands for Zero Energy Technology and Architecture, plans to sell to developers and architects, rather than directly to consumers. ZETA employees take architects' plans and recommend a way to build the home in modular pieces.
For example, ZETA buildings have a single "utility core" where all the wiring and pipes for heating and cooling systems go. The building is constructed in a factory--90 percent complete--and then shipped to its location for assembly. The process is twice as fast and generates half the waste of on-site construction, Porat explained.
The other break from the industry status quo is an in-home controller that manages sensors and the home's mechanical systems--heating, cooling, etc.--and provides consumers with a display of its electricity usage in real time. That sort of feedback system can help a consumer cut electricity use by 20 percent, Porat said.
Its first planned homes will use solar electric panels for on-site power generation and efficient appliances, including air-source heat pumps and heat-recovery ventilators to provide clean air.
Retrofitting existing homes to be energy efficient represents a larger housing stock to work with. But ZETA is targeting new multifamily units, typically in urban areas, because that type of housing also has the potential to make a large-scale impact, said Porat.
"There's a lot of vanity green going on. Unless you do net-zero homes at market prices, it will keep the market to one segment of the population," she said.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Did you ever put baseball cards in the spokes of you bicycle wheels? Yea? Me Too! And then one day you were riding along feeling so cool and this prissy little girl who is new on the block comes sailing by and she has a bike with one of those white wicker baskets with REAL ribbon woven into it, and the handlebar grips have shiny metallic streamers magically growing out of them and they wave up and down in the wind like they are saying "see ya later chump"!
Well, the bicycle company gouged her dad for her cool bike. We still applied the principals of coolness to our bikes in our own ways. No one stopped us.The rich will be gouged for their green houses. And we will build our green houses our way, and no one will stop us. It's the American way. micah mcdaniel
I wonder if it will continue to be "cool" for the wealthy since it won't be exclusive to them anymore.
It is such a shame that goverments don't support this type of technologies which soon will be indispensable, what are the majority going to do then?
I remember going to a third world country and observing how most of the cars are compact and fuel efficient I commented: "It is great to see that people here care about the environment and try not to pollute". How naive! My friend told me it was necessary to have small and fuel efficient cars because the car prices are very expensive and the gas is almost a luxury. "Driving an SUV here is a luxury".
I can't picture any of these celebrities making their own compost and cultivating their own vegetables.
<a href="http://www.paulspublicityblog.com/" target="_blank">Paul Hartunian</a>
- by davidwfox September 29, 2009 7:31 PM PDT
- Surprising that some (presumably) tech-savvy cnet readers don't recognize the same thing is going on in green building that we've enjoyed in the tech world for decades: namely those who can afford to be first pay a premium, and thus subsidize later markets. The 'trickle down' effect is that over time prices will fall as products go into volume production. It is true that custom green building - especially retrofitting a Victorian as I am presently doing - is complex and expensive especially if you have a 5-10 year horizon. But I think we need to look longer term. My house has stood for 100 years and will I'm sure stand for another 100 years. Amortize the costs over 20-30 years and you're well ahead. Over time companies like ZETA (and their customers) will benefit from the efforts of the pioneers.
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