A suburban Las Vegas housing development is now a real-life laboratory for innovative research in renewable energy and conservation. The UNLV Center for Energy Research has teamed up with a consortium of partners to design and construct a Zero Energy Home in southwest Las Vegas.
A Zero Energy Home, a designation from the U.S. Department of Energy, combines state-of-the-art, energy-efficient construction and appliances with commercially available renewable energy systems such as solar water heating and electricity. The home’s renewable energy systems can produce more electricity than is used at certain times — on a mild but sunny day, for example — and the excess energy is fed back into the utility grid. Because the home may produce as much electricity as it consumes, the net result is zero electricity consumption.
What’s distinctive about this project is that two nearly identical, 1,610-square-foot houses have been built side-by-side; one the Zero Energy model and the other built using conventional construction practices. Both homes are equipped with monitoring instruments discreetly imbedded during construction. Over an 18-month period, UNLV engineering students and faculty will monitor the energy performance of the two homes.
“This innovative and unique research project is a significant milestone in the effort to reduce residential energy consumption and make Zero Energy homes the standard in America,” says Bob Boehm, director of the UNLV Center for Energy Research and distinguished professor in the College of Engineering.
The project is a partnership between the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering, Nevada Southwest Energy Partnership, Pinnacle Homes, and Nevada Power. ConSol and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provided technical and design support.
The home’s energy efficiency features installed in the Zero Energy Home are: specially manufactured “T-mass” walls, solar water heating, a highly efficient water-cooled air-conditioning condenser, and energy efficient vinyl windows. The house has a roof-integrated photovoltaic (PV) electric system which can generate as much or more electricity than the house needs from solar power. The excess electricity will be fed back to Nevada Power’s grid, offsetting the home’s energy use (net zero energy).
“This home has been built to be super energy efficient using readily available technologies and products, and the combination will perform fabulously” says Rob Hammon of ConSol, which provided energy-efficiency design support to the project.
