"The team at Lawrence Tech has built a quality sustainable home that is both economical and earth-friendly. The thinking that went into this structure is frankly astounding," says Jim Croce, president and CEO of Detroit-based NextEnergy. "This is an amazing achievement for this internationally recognized student competition and is further evidence of Lawrence Tech’s academic strength in the alternative energy sector."
That strength is coupled with the common sense of using green building techniques and technologies that are widely available to the public so the house can serve as a showcase on how regular people can conserve energy in housing.
For instance, the primary source of energy for hot water and heating is an array of evacuated tubes. The system can store a day's worth of hot water and can pay for itself in energy savings in about two years. All of the home’s electricity is generated by photovoltaic solar panels that cover much of the roof. When sunlight isn’t available, the home’s battery system will meet all the energy needs for things like heating, ventilation and air conditioning. To make the house energy positive, meaning it produces more energy than it consumes, Team ALOeTERRA utilizes a number of energy conservation ideas to control the house's energy appetite.
"We want our house to be a stage for educating homebuyers about the possibilities for dramatically decreasing the carbon footprint of their homes," says Christina Span, a member of Team ALOeTERRA. "Making homes more energy-efficient is the single biggest thing we can do as a country to reduce our country’s energy consumption and reliance on foreign oil."
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