Self sufficient 'smart homes' promised by 2010

The world's first commercially available "smart" homes, which will be virtually self-sufficient in energy terms by using cutting-edge efficiency and microgeneration technologies, will be available by the end of 2009 for rent in Barcelona and Paris, developers told a conference in Spain yesterday.

The Smart Energy Home (SEH) consortium, a collaboration of university researchers, chemical and construction companies, hope that the homes will demonstrate the potential for cutting down personal energy use in the home, with plans for further homes in Warsaw and Berlin and ongoing discussions about a project in the UK.

Rudiger Iden of BASF, one of the companies in the consortium, outlined plans for the demonstration homes at the Euroscience Open Forum meeting in Barcelona. In Paris there will be an apartment block containing 200 dwellings, while in Barcelona, the SEH consortium will build around 40 flats.

On average, a family expends around 3,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year and around 70% of that is used up in and around our homes. Iden said that SEH was aimed at reducing the environmental impact of this proportion virtually to zero.

Some of the technologies slated for use in the homes are tried and tested, such as using renewable energy sources to generate electricity - either wind turbines or solar PV panels and concentrators on the roof - and better thermal wall insulation. The SEH homes could also use smart energy-management systems that can, for example, use sensors to work out where there are people in a house and turn heating and lighting on and off depending on where it is needed.

Other ideas will be more advanced, such as the use of phase-change materials to even out fluctuations in temperature inside a building. These wax-like materials are embedded into the walls, storing heat when temperatures are high by melting. When external temperatures drop, the materials solidify and release the trapped heat back into the house. To even out seasonal changes in temperature, homes could collect excess energy during summer and use it to freeze a block of water in their basement. When the building next needs cooling, the water can be melted.

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