Green Options

How lessons-learned from a state-of-the-art net-zero project can help us all reduce our impact

Now that everyone is finally talking about green buildings, the question becomes “Where do we need to go from here?”

The answer? Net-zero.

That’s what a panel of experts told an audience assembled last month at Rocky Mountain Institute’s symposium in San Francisco, RMI2009.

This year’s Solar Decathlon at the National Mall has come to a close, and the winner has been crowned! Germany, for the second year in a row, has taken the gold for it’s Net Zero, solar powered home after a week long competition that brought many innovative ideas to light.

More than fifty years after the electrical industry launched the “Medallion Homes” campaign to push U.S. homeowners into an all-electric future, General Electric is taking it to the next level.  The appliance giant has announced that by 2015 it will have developed a complete all-electric net zero home appliance management system that includes enough solar and and wind capacity to take a home off the grid, and even generate enough power to sell back to the local utility.