Energy-neutral house, electric transport.

#MoveTheDate Solutions

Personal / Community: Personal action

Cities sub-categories: Transportation, Renewable energy

Description: Fully energy neutral house using solar PV and a brine heat pump (geothermal). Transportation is done using bicycle or EV (charged at the house for fully renewable transportation). We strive to live as impact-neutral as possible while giving up relatively few comforts, this house contributes greatly to that.

Why I love this solution: Because I live in it!

Comments

• • Jaime V.
  • 2019-08-06T11:37:49.551355+00:00
  • @Karen W. Ask away! It is a typical semi-detached Dutch "2 onder 1 kap" house which means it's connected to our neighbours (visible in the picture) and free-standing on the other side. We replaced the default setup using a gas heater with a brine heatpump. This also meant that we needed floor heating on all floors as radiators (normally used on the 2nd and 3rd floors in these houses) don't work with lower temperature heating. Airco is rare here so these houses don't have any. Added bonus of the brine heatpump is that it can also cool the house which has been wonderful this summer with temperatures hitting 40 C. Because of our reliance on gas, cooking on gas is normal in the Netherlands. We swapped the gas stove out for an electric (induction) one so we could fully drop the connection to the residential gas net and save some money. Cooking on induction works just as well, just takes a bit to get used to it. The induction stove is a lot easier to keep clean though! All our pans turned out to be compatible so no replacements needed. To offset the high energy usage we had 28 * 320 Wp LG solar panels installed in an East/West config, the front of the house (in the picture) is facing East. We have some spare room on the rear to add more solar in the future if we need to, our inverter has some headroom so we can just add more panels. Net metering means we just need to produce as much as we use each year and we're golden. If in the future this changes we have a nice spot marked out for a Powerwall or other residential battery (when the economics makes sense). Bikes are very common in The Netherlands and my wife uses hers to get everywhere. I need some more range for work so I drive a Tesla Model 3 which is charged from the house. We've been thinking about adding a second smaller EV like a secondhand Zoë so my wife is less reliant on public transport or my car. The total costs of the changes to the house are covered by the fact that you can get a higher mortgage for an energy-neutral house (and a bit of subsidy). The costs saved by using solar and not having a gas connection more than outweigh the extra mortgage payments while also giving us the option to repay prematurely (can you pay off your gas/electric company permanently?).
• • Karen W.
  • 2019-08-06T09:34:15.176960+00:00
  • I'd like to know more details about your house. It is interesting looking. We need this kind of doing, thinking sooooo much! Thank you for sharing it
• • Kristine J.
  • 2019-07-31T19:07:00.668544+00:00
  • This is very inspiring!