BGBG's first blog posting - we are officially in the 21st Century! The organization has been growing like wildfire - 200+ members, tons of educational workshops and tours, an impressive new journal publication... too much to detail at the moment, so I'll start with today's presentation hosted at the Dairy (and sponsored as always by the City of Boulder Office of Environmental Affairs).
"Zero Energy" homes are getting a lot of press lately. In today's presentation by Barbara Farhar, formerly with NREL, we learned about her comparison study of two communities in California: one that was built to high efficiency standards with solar hot water and optional PV systems, the other built to Title 24 efficiency standards but with no special energy or solar features. Comparing the two, Barbara taught us a new way of thinking about and marketing zero energy homes. If you'd like more information about her study, click here: http://www.bgbg.org/Presentations/Farhar_022007.pdf
Stay tuned for the Spring edition of the Boulder Green Building Journal (BGBJ) in which we will investigate exactly what zero-energy means (it does NOT always mean the home uses no energy, as we learned today). We'll also take a look at what lies beyond "zero-energy" -- net-energy producing homes. In the mean time you can check out back issues of the BGBJ here: http://www.bgbg.org/news/BGBJ.php
We welcome your ideas and comments about topics presented here!
-Kim Master, Executive Director, Boulder Green Building Guild, www.bgbg.org
