The house uses L-E-D lighting and has a geothermal heating and cooling system. It is solar-powered. The solar system provides the energy needed for the house and an electric vehicle.
Michael Koenig with Honda Smart Home U.S. says every year the system is expected to produce two kilowatts of electricity more than it consumes.
"This is the vision for how can we achieve net-zero carbon, not just net-zero energy, but how can we get to zero or below zero carbon for the future. And there's a lot of ways to do it. There's a lot of smart people working on it.
A UC Davis employee will live in the house for several months and assess its livability.
The house has hundreds of sensors which can trigger automatic lighting and record information about the viability of new products.
It has other efficiencies. The slab of the home was poured using a new cement mix that requires fewer carbon emissions. Gray water will be used to water the landscape.
Della Thompson is in real estate. She was one of about 60 people who took a tour during an open house.
"It would be great if it was available to everybody. The problem's going to be to make it cost-effective where it doesn't price everybody out of California," she says.
Honda won't say how much the house cost, but it does say it hopes the research will help make the efficiencies standard for new homes within ten years.
The home is the newest addition to the West Village community at U.C. Davis. The school says the development is on its way to becoming the nation's largest net-zero energy community.
July 23, 2018Two nights of aerial spraying to reduce the number of mosquitoes testing positive for West Nile virus are scheduled to begin Monday in parts of Elk Grove, the Pocket Neighborhood and neighborhoods south of Fruitridge Road.
.jpg "Tahoe Environmental Research Center boat captain Brant Allen lowers a Secchi disk from the research vessel into Lake Tahoe. The disk has been used for more than 50 years to measure water clarity at the lake.")
June 13, 2018If you spent time on the water at Lake Tahoe last year and thought it looked a lot cloudier, you're right. UC Davis researchers say extreme weather — drought followed by heavy rains — caused clarity in 2017 to drop to its lowest recorded level.
.jpg "A million fall run Chinook salmon smolts, who were raised at the Feather River Hatchery, are released from large tanks down a long pipe on a dock and out into the Sacramento River.")
May 3, 2018The fish took a ride in a large truck on Wednesday morning and are now headed down the river on a journey to the ocean.
March 8, 2018Using this new approach to calculate the snow’s water content also means improved forecasts for farms and cities, and even positive benefits for renewable-energy production. The program soon could go statewide — if it gets funded.
March 5, 2018(AP) — Monday's snow survey found a "much rosier" picture than before last week's heavy winter storm, but still less than half the usual snow for this point in the season.
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