Zero Net Energy Home Demonstration

The California Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan has set a long-term goal that all new residential construction in California be ZNE by 2020. One of Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) strategies in support of this goal is to inform the local building industry of ZNE benefits, concepts, and practical applications. By providing a basic framework of ZNE knowledge to policymakers, tradespeople, and contractors, and increasing stakeholders’ interest and awareness of ZNE, PG&E intends to push the building construction and retrofit market towards a ZNE approach.
PG&E has launched various efforts in pursuit of this strategy, including a ZNE class series, ZNE pilot program, ZNE design workshop, and other projects and programs. In addition, PG&E installed this ZNE home demonstration as part of this larger effort to push the market towards ZNE.

PG&E has leveraged the well utilized Energy Training Center (ETC) in Stockton for the ZNE home demonstration. The ETC has an existing “Display House” used for training into which the demonstration has been installed, as well as a strong user base of market actors. The facility serves about 12,000 customers per year, including roughly 7,000 different customers enrolling in classes. (Some students attend more than one class.) Current ETC customers include, among many other subcategories: builders; tradespeople, including HVAC, electrician, and solar technicians; home performance professionals including contractors and auditors; and real estate management professionals. Given a demonstrated commitment and appreciation for new ideas in energy efficiency, ETC customers are considered a good audience for the demonstration. In addition, most ETC customers primarily work on residential projects.

HMG was contracted to evaluate the ZNE Home Demonstration, with a focus on assessing the effectiveness of the ZNE demonstration site. In addition, HMG provides recommendations based on our findings. Finally, this evaluation could serve as an example for future demonstration evaluations.

The evaluation was carried out by reviewing relevant literature to inform methodology and analysis, interviewing project team members to understand goals and metrics, and surveying ETC customers before and after the demonstration opening to collect data and feed insights for this and future demonstrations.