CASE STUDY
case HistOry
The Zero-
Energy
Home
Challenge
How competing in a Massachusetts
homebuilding competition reshaped one
builder’s approach to affordable,
high-performance homes.
Text and photos by R. Carter Scott
My firm has been building renewable energy-powered houses
according to sustainable practices for years. In 2006, we initiated the Coppersmith Way development in Townsend, Mass., with
the goal of building environmentally friendly, price-competitive solar
homes — an experience I detailed in these pages (see “Built Green at
Coppersmith Way,” September/October 2007 issue). So this spring,
when the state’s investor-owned utilities announced the Zero Energy
Challenge, we were raring to compete.
As sponsors of the Massachusetts New Homes with Energy Star
program, the utilities developed the competition to “encourage builders to design and construct homes [using] considerably less energy
than homes built with traditional residential practices, products and
technologies.” ICF International, the program administrator, solicited
submittals from homebuilders and homeowners and chose six builders
who could plan and deliver a built home with a Home Energy Rating
System (HERS) Index below 35 before December 2009. For comparison, a home must earn a HERS Index of no more than 85 to rate as
an Energy Star home. At the end of the competition, the three homes
with the lowest HERS Indexes will split $50,000 in prize money. The
grand prize winner will receive $25,000, the first runner-up $15,000,
and the second runner-up will win $10,000. It was an ingenious way to
get more firms thinking about zero energy design, at a contained and
predetermined cost for the sponsors. My company, Transformations
Inc., was chosen as one of the six builders.
