Article Title: A Zero Energy Home

Excerpt: Ideal Homes built the first zero energy home in the country priced under $200,000. The modest one-story, three-bedroom, two bathroom home produces as much energy as it consumes in a year, achieving net zero energy consumption.

Excerpt: A ZEH is connected to the utility grid, but at off-peak time periods, it generates more power than it uses by combining renewable energy technologies with advanced energy-efficient construction. As a result, a ZEH lowers the power demand on its utility provider. It produces about as much energy as it consumes during a year, so it is considered to achieve "net zero" energy consumption.

Excerpt: "Zero energy homes get a black eye in my mind," says McKown, "Every time they do a demonstration site, they run out and they hire some brilliant architect and they go off and they build this one-off amazing house that sticks out of the neighborhood like a prairie chicken, and it costs a million dollars. Everybody looks at that and says, 'That's interesting. With enough money, you can do anything.' "We wanted to show that you can take any house out of a builder's product line," McKown continues, "and make it a zero energy house and it would look and feel and be just like a regular house, and it doesn't have to cost a million dollars. We could do it under $200,000."

Excerpt: The ZEH model is a test house and is not an available plan for purchase, but it has created so much interest and traffic at Valencia that sales in the community are brisk — they've averaged 20 homes per month since June of 2005. Ideal Homes has had an increase in requests for tankless water heaters, ground source heat pumps and other elements of the ZEH, but not for a replica of the ZEH.

Article Title: Ultra efficient -- and affordable

Excerpt: Friday, Habitat for Humanity of Catawba Valley welcomed her into a building that will change all of that: The state's first zero-energy Habitat house, which is expected to produce about as much energy as it uses, thanks to rooftop solar panels and a range of efficient features.

Excerpt: The materials used in the zero-energy house cost about $100,000, Gellman said, compared with $75,000 for a normal Habitat house. State and private grants and donations made up the difference, she said.