The US Department of Energy has set quite a goal for buildings in the near future.
The Building Technologies Program addresses energy efficiency in current buildings, but also aims to refine technologies and design innovations to create marketable and affordable zero energy homes by 2020 and zero energy commercial buildings by 2025.
In 2005, commercial buildings used 18 percent of energy in the United States, accounting for 18 percent of energy related greenhouse gas emissions. In places such as California, residential buildings account for over 30 percent of electricity consumption
A net-zero energy building is one with greatly reduced energy requirements through energy efficiency refinements, 60% to 70% less than current conventional building practices, with the remaining energy needs being provided by renewable technologies such as wind energy and solar power.
While prototypes usually consisting off-grid power systems have been around for decades, the problem has always been one of cost mainly in relation to energy storage and the use of high tech materials needed to provide improved energy efficiency.
Some of the costs of energy efficiency aspects have been greatly decreased in recent years, not through the use of more materials, but by using less through design improvements.
On the energy storage front; by using a grid connect approach; when it’s cloudy or calm, home and building owners could still access power from the grid. Then when a system is generating surplus power, it would feed that electricity into the grid and over time, the exporting of energy would be around equal to the draw.
Given these two aspects and the rapidly decreasing price of renewable energy equipment such as solar panels, the US Department of Energy’s goal may just become reality.
