In this Florida community, you don’t pay for electricity

In this Florida urbanizationNo one pays Electricity bill.

That’s not because of subsidies, but by design: all 86 homes have been built or are planned Hunters pointa Urbanization One hour south TampaCount on 14 solar panels And one Home battery 12 kilowatt hours in utility closet.

One afternoon, this Solar panels of a three-storied building Double production Energy What do they use? They use part Extra electricity To charge the battery, which Feed your household During the night, and sell the rest Electrical network. In his previous house Virginia BeachThe couple came to pay Bill Electricity up to $600 per month.

“We haven’t received an invoice yet,” he says. Williama Retired Contractor 76-year-old who spent decades building custom homes before passing away Florida. “If I were to build another house again, this would be it Solar energy. “It makes a big difference.”

Hunters point It is the first urbanization in the world to have achieved LEED Zero Energy CertificationAccording to him United States Green Building Council, which means that the entire community produces more electricity than it consumes. This style of Construction Offers building models Sustainable in times of climate changeAccording to Avery McEvoywhich investigates carbon-free electricity Rocky Mountain InstituteA clean energy think tank.

“When you build a home or a community, you invest in your own generation, but also in future generations,” he said. “For the future we will plan more in an integrated and sustainable mannerOur communities will be more resilient.”

In addition to reducing Carbon emissions K Warm the planetSolar panels and home batteries Hunters point They reduce the chance of losing power in the event of a storm. When the Hurricane Ian Southwest hit Florida in 2022 and left millions without power — including homeowners across the street. Hunters point-, light of Fulford They continued.

“I feel very safe here,” he says. William. “We’ve already been through that here Hurricane…and this neighborhood wasn’t without power, so it didn’t affect us.

This Endurance marine because Hunters point Located in lower peninsulabordered by channelsWhich is interesting in this Sarasota Bay. is protected from in the Gulf of MexicoStorm-prone, through a narrow island resistance Less than 305 meters wide at its closest point.

Pearl Homesthat Florida promoter Who is behind the project, raised the streets Hunters point One and a half meters above the existing ground level and created a low central park that allows water to drain away from the ground. way After the flood. Each house is built above the garage on the first floor, so that all rooms are at least five meters above sea level. The walls are designed to resist Wind speed of 241 kilometers per hour.

Also Marshall GobutiFounder of Pearl HomesSays that a solar panel And one Battery They are just as important as elevated roads and strong walls to ensure people can return to their homes after a major storm. “If you can get home, great. If your house is still standing, even better,” he says. “But if you don’t have electricity, you can’t stay in your house.”

In addition to keeping their own lights on during storms, communities like Hunters point They can also make more of the electrical grid resistant For your neighbors.

This Electric companies can pay owners to use part of capacity from their home batteries to balance the grid. When there is a lot of power on the grid and the demand for electricity is low, the power company charges of co-owners. Then, when demand for electricity peaks, the company can pull out Energy from the battery and return it to the grid to meet demand.

This concept is called A virtual power plant And there are more than 500 such projects United States and CanadaAccording to a February 2023 report by an energy and resource consultancy Wood Mackenzie. A virtual power plant can help Electrical companies To meet demand peaks without needing to resort to thermal power plants operated by fossil fuels.

“With a virtual power plant, you help the community and the local grid,” he says. McVoy. “It’s a different type Recovery ability. You can provide these services to your local system, charge for it and keep the network online.” “By the time we finish our last home in 2025, the goal is to have a A virtual power plant“, he states Gobuti.

Spokesperson for Florida Power and Light It declined to say whether talks with the utility are underway Hunters point about the idea, but said it would face obstacles from Florida Public Service Commissionwhich regulates the state’s major utility companies.

Asking about it, Cindy Muirwhich directs Office of Consumer Assistance and Disclosure The commission, in an email, said: “We are not ‘familiar with the term.’A virtual power plant‘; And so, we don’t have standards that define that term.”

Before Pearl Homes will start the construction of Hunters point In June 2022, he made one of the first LEED Zero Energy Homes In the world, inside a warehouse located 18 kilometers away Palmetto, Florida.

Two Storey House – Model houses that are now for sale Hunters point Between 1.35 and 1.8 million dollars – was equipped with the system Air conditioning, Household AppliancesTwo televisions, one Home battery and mass Solar panels (Installed on warehouse roofs, where they can catch the sun). for 18 months, Pearl Homes How many devices did a typical homeowner use and how much data did they collect? Electricity consumed and how much its solar panels produce.

“There was one guy whose full-time job was running the equipment,” he explains. Gobuti. “We ran the shower. We lit the stove every day. “We even had peloton bikes.”

Within 18 months, developers demonstrated that the model home was over-producing Energy Consuming, they discovered that the 22 owners who have moved in so far are actually a 25% less energy than expected, and its solar panels a 35% more energy than expected.

For houses to function well, Pearl Homes equipped them Efficient devices15 centimeters Insulating foam on the walls and Double glazed windows. The developer spent $88,000 on the panels Solar and efficiency improvements for each household. Owners can sue 35% of the federal tax credit (about $30,000) when filing your income tax return in the first year after moving.

Gobuti He hopes that a national builder will copy his company’s design, which could transform the lifestyle of Americans across the country. “There’s somebody who’s going to do this,” he said.

(c) 2024, The Washington Post