Energy-Producing Homes

The Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities is in the process of redesigning its new faculty headquarters, now called HouseZero. More than just an aesthetic shift, the building will be a standard-bearer for what the Center for Green Buildings and Cities espouses, with a plethora of energy efficient systems that will ultimately give it not just a net energy output of zero, but a positive energy output.

There are nearly a dozen efficiency strategies that HouseZero will use in order to achieve its lofty energy goals. These include things like photovoltaic roof shingles that produce solar energy, denser materials used in the floors and stairs to increase the house's mass and store thermal energy for longer, and geothermal wells that will provide almost all of the heating and cooling in the building.