Zero Energy Homes

Employing lessons learned from the Building America program, the California Energy Commission has established a research program called Zero Energy New Homes (ZENH) whose goal is to develop new business models that can result in mainstreaming near-zero energy home communities. In addition to addressing annual energy use, the ZENH program also addresses the impact of ZENH communities on peak load. ConSol is a key partner in three ZENH projects that have different approaches to making near-zero energy home communities sustainable. ConSol is working with some of California’s most innovative builders and utilities to define successful business models for including solar electricity in very energy efficient homes.

Builders opt into building Zero Energy Homes by including solar electricity in three ways: 1) As an option, leaving the sales agent to sell the benefits of ZEH; 2) By building a designated number of preplotted lots to ZEH standards, and 3) By building the entire community to ZEH standards. Each project below will be identified with one of the following marks: