It’s Affordable BECAUSE It’s Net-Zero
Team: Daniel Handeen
Program: Center for Sustainable Building Research
Hillcrest Village is a 17-unit development in Northfield, MN, that provides transitional housing to individuals and families in need. The buildings were designed to be Net-Zero Energy using an integrated design process that included architects, building science experts from the CSBR, Passive House consultants, the owner, the builder, construction verifiers, and other community stakeholders. A truly iterative design process gave rise to an all-electric site, utilizing air-source heat pumps for space conditioning and water heating, ERV’s, and electric cooking and laundry appliances. Careful attention to hygrothermal performance and 2-d heat flow using WUFI Pro and WUFI Passive software resulted in a wall assembly of R-39 that was moisture-safe and largely free of thermal bridges.
Because such attention was paid to reducing site energy consumption, the size of the PV array could be significantly reduced, resulting in a total marginal cost increase of 12.4% to achieve Net-Zero. Remarkably, residents pay an all-inclusive utility charge of only $20 per month. Hillcrest Village is currently part of a larger CSBR study that seeks to verify energy usage and ventilation assumptions, and to better understand developer and builder challenges and take-aways related to high-performance affordable housing design and construction.
Keywords: Affordable, Housing, Net-zero
Funders: UMN Extension Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships
