Page 32 - Green Builder January 2017 Issue

GOOD BONES
Even the home’s construction upon a solid foundation acts as an
insulator, preventing energy from leaking out through the floor,
Faulk adds.
Simplified use by tenants is a key element. Each home’s solar
+ storage system is automated—residents don’t have to handle a
thing—and Green Mountain Power, Sonnen and project co-developer
Addison County Community Trust (AACT) (www.addisontrust.org)
monitor all functions. The system automatically shuts down if any
serious system errors occur.
More important, from the tenant’s point of view, is the lower utility
bill. The energy savings will mean a smaller portion of the family
budget will go toward keeping the lights on, according to ACCT
Executive Director Elise Shanbacker.
“Nearly half of Addison County renters are burdened by their
housing costs, paying more than a third of their incomes in rent and
utilities,” Shanbacker says. “Not only is McKnight Lane affordable
to low-income Vermonters, the net-zero homes (and their) resilient
energy storage systems ensure residents won’t have to choose
between purchasing groceries or paying their fuel bill to stay warm
this winter.”
The Sonnen batteries are “prepared to weather storms and outages
for years to come,” Shanbacker adds.
Sonnen CEO Christoph Ostermann says the company’s goal is
to provide everyone with clean, affordable and reliable energy.
“Projects like the McKnight Lane development enable us to bring
new technologies like solar + storage to lower-income communities,
CREDIT: CLEAN ENERGY GROUP providing cost savings and peace of mind for these homeowners,” he
CREDIT: CLEAN ENERGY GROUP clean energy equity.”
Power aids. Each home includes energy-saving features such as
triple-pane windows (above) and a solid foundation (below). These
help keep the solar + storage system running at peak efficiency.
30 GREEN BUILDER January/February 2017
CREDIT: CLEAN ENERGY GROUP
Resilient Features
¦¦ McKnight Lane is the first resilient zero-energy modular housing
development for a rural, low-income community.
¦¦ Each of the 14 modular homes has a 6-kWh/4-kW AC smart solar
energy storage system.
¦¦ Smart energy storage systems will work in conjunction with a
6-kW rooftop solar PV system to provide resilient power to tenants.
¦¦ Each energy storage systems is able to automatically disconnect
from the grid and enable power from the solar panels to provide
resilient, reliable and clean electricity to tenants during a
grid outage.
¦¦ Electricity cost savings to McKnight Lane homes are expected to
be 100 percent, making them net zero.
says. “It (stimulates) the local utility grid and contributes to greater
In addition to providing McKnight Lane residents with resilient
power, the McKnight Lane project will demonstrate how solar
energy storage systems can improve the grid’s safety, reliability and
performance while delivering cost savings to its customers, Sonnen
notes.
CEG and the Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) (www.cesa.
org) will work with Sonnen and Green Mountain Power to collect
performance data on the energy storage systems and provide system
optimization analysis. Once the data is in, CEG and CESA will
work with stakeholders to implement similar projects in Vermont
and throughout the Northeast. VERMOD and Efficiency Vermont
(www.efficiencyvermont.com), one of the project’s stakeholders, have
already identified at least two other such locales.
“We’d like to be able to use this as a replicable model,” Olinsky-
Paul says. “There are lots of places in the rural Northeast that are just
falling to pieces. It’s not a quick process, but something like this can
go a long way toward helping a lot of people.” GB
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