Award-Winning Zero-Energy Home Exceeds Expectations

We’ve just heard some great news about a home that Trillium Architects designed last year. We had estimated that the solar-powered, super-insulated home would produce more power that it used, but the results were even better than expected. Even with mandatory hook-up fees charged by the local power company, the homeowners received a refund check for power sent back to the grid from their rooftop photovoltaic panels.

The house had already won the Department of Energy's 2017 Zero-Energy Housing Innovations Award based on the estimated energy savings, but the current data bumps up the expected saving by nearly $500/year when you factor in the $7/month in net fees that energy modeling anticipated. Rather than summarize the lovely letter we got about the home’s performance, we’ve included an excerpt from it below: 

We just got our first check from Central Hudson for the net electricity we have generated over the last 12 months: $697.51.  Pretty good, huh?  Our net generation was 7,265 kWh for the time between March 7, 2017 and March 13, 2018.  That equates to about 9.6 cents/kWh which is a lot higher than I thought we'd get.
 
The check covers not only the $24 per month fixed rate we pay every month, even when there is no net electricity usage, but it also covered all the payments we had made to Central Hudson before the solar pv system was switched on.  From Sept. 19, 2016 (when the electricity went on) to March 7, 2017 (though the solar system had already been running) our total payments to Central Hudson were $376.80.
 
So as of today, Central Hudson has paid us $25.23 more than we've paid them.  Going forward, if things stayed the same, we would have a net income from Central Hudson of about $400 per year.  Or we could increase our annual electricity usage by 4,200 kWh, which is 350 kWh per month, which is about 80 kWh per week, which I think is about what it takes to charge an electric car.
 

Find out more about this award-winning house in our portfolio: 
Hudson Valley, NY - Passive House Certified Farmhouse