Innovation Anthology #174: Forest Ecologist, Adjunct Professor and Team Lead of Healthy Landscapes Program
The high cost of fossil based energy has finally hit home, both financially and environmentally.
Now Canadians are giving serious attention to energy efficient, environment friendly technologies for new house construction.
That’s what you’ll find in the Riverdale Net Zero House. This specially designed duplex in Edmonton’s river valley is one of 12 such projects across the country.
The goal is to reduce each home’s net energy consumption to zero.
Engineer Gordon Howell helped design the home’s rooftop solar system.
GORDON HOWELL: On each side there are 7 collectors that provide space heating and water heating and 28 solar power modules that provide the electricity. So they are two completely different technologies. One gives heat. One gives electricity.
Inverters feed surplus power into the city’s power grid. And further energy reductions are achieved through the use of energy and water efficient appliances, high performance windows, and very thick walls with R56 insulation.
GORDON HOWELL: At minus 32 here at midnight, we can heat the house with six hairdryers. That’ how small the energy consumption is.
The Riverdale Net Zero House achieves these amazing efficiencies with off the shelf technologies and products.
Learn more at InnovationAnthology.com
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
David Andison, PhD,
Bandaloop Ecosystem Services Ltd – University of British Columbia – fRI Research, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,
Sponsor
Program Date: 2008-10-09