The idea of a Net Zero Energy (NZE) home is that it employs enhanced energy efficiency design strategies to cost effectively reduce energy needs, while meeting those needs with renewable energy technologies, with the result that the building consumes equal to or less energy than it produces on an annual basis.

The Net Zero Energy community project attempted to assess and resolve the challenges in relation to, among other things, site planning, construction, equipment, grid connections, cost, trade capability, warranty, reliability, sales, marketing, and homebuyer information/education.

The project successfully engaged production builders and completed 26 net zero energy or net zero energy ready homes. Team members continue to be involved in the net zero community and volunteer their time to move net zero forward as the country considers a near net zero or carbon neutral future.

This project demonstrated that NZEH is technically feasible for a production builder. The next step is to continue to disseminate this knowledge and encourage other influential production builders to build NZEH communities of their own. More field experience and data will help regulators move this target forward.

A full report on the Project can be found here:

• ecoEII Public Report ENGLISH
• ecoEII Public Report FRENCH

Michael Lio was recently interviewed by the Globe and Mail for his insights on net-zero. Below is a clip of the article containing Michael’s observations.

Can net-zero net the average homebuyer?

An Edmonton house with solar panels selling for less than 10 per cent more than one without signals a possible shift

TIM QUERENGESSER

THE GLOBE AND MAILLAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, APR. 19, 2017 5:47PM EDT

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Millennials aren’t buying single-detached houses, yet, she says, but when they do, net-zero will be an expectation, not an upgrade. These buyers “tend to expect [net-zero] to be a feature within the home,” Weatherston says, based on the company’s experience selling town homes to millennial buyers. “They expect it to be standard.”

Weatherston says the market may be forced to respond even before the codes make them.

But for Michael Lio, a leader with the for-profit BuildAbility Corp., in Ontario, which works to create change in the housing industry, the key is electricity and energy prices.

Lio uses Ontario as an example of where net-zero can and can’t make sense to the average consumer. “In Ontario, for instance, given the high price of electricity, if you have a house that’s disconnected from natural gas lines and you’re currently heating with electricity or you choose not to use oil, then it makes a whole lot of sense to go that extra little bit and go to net-zero,” Lio says.

But, thanks to the cheap price of natural gas, “We are absolutely not at the tipping point of moving off it,” he adds.

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To read the full article, click here.