Buildings
Looking Beyond California: Zero Energy Housing in the United States
In only a year and a half, if you buy a house that’s just been built in California, you will be buying a house designed for the future: highly energy efficient, and a producer of clean, solar energy. Also, chances are good that it will be all-electric and have energy…
Is There a Trade-off with Transparency? A Deep Dive into Automated Home Energy Estimates
In the battle of human versus machine, is there a clean winner? No, we’re not talking about a future dystopian society—we’re talking about home energy estimates. Rocky Mountain Institute’s new report, An MPG for Homes: Accuracy and Application of Automated Home Energy Estimates, builds on earlier research to…
How Cities Can Ensure Better Rentals for Everyone
Today, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) released a new report, Better Rentals, Better City: Smart Policies to Improve Your City’s Rental Housing Energy Performance, which aims to inform city leaders on mechanisms that can boost energy performance improvements in rental housing that benefit tenants, landlords, community leaders, and the environment.
Social Equity, Affordable Housing, and the Net-Zero Energy Opportunity
Think of a net-zero energy (NZE) home, and it’s likely that you imagine a single-family house in a well-to-do neighborhood, with a roof covered in solar panels and an electric car parked in the driveway. This is a pleasant picture, but it highlights two underlying assumptions many of us have:…
An Existing Building Portfolio on a Path to Net-Zero Energy
Many developers cite first-cost as a barrier to pursuing net-zero energy in their new and existing building projects. But one leading developer in Colorado is flipping the script on this assumption, showing that prioritizing energy performance can open up new cash flows, as opposed to draining existing ones. John Madden…