Colorado energy projects loom big, both mega and micro-sized
By Mark Samuelson
Last week, while a field of solar panels near Alamosa was cranking out 8.22 megawatts of power, enough to run 1,600 homes, builder John Keith was doing the same thing on a small scale…readying a new house at Stapleton that will have 8.5 kilowatts of solar on the roof. It’s a thousandth as much, but looms large for the purchaser.
Builder John Keith shows off Harvard Communities’ Architect Collection at Stapleton, where he includes energy efficient construction and a small solar system with every home built. He’s opening a “Near-Zero Energy Home” there Jan. 24-25.
With the solar, coupled with exceptional energy conservation design, Keith’s Near-Zero Energy Home will deliver nearly all of the energy the family will use…so much that they’ll likely never pay more than a few hundred dollars a year for power and gas.
The energy package is delivering, as well, for Keith’s homebuilding company, Harvard Communities. “We’ll close around 25 homes this year and we’re making a profit,” says Keith, who provides a minimal sized solar system with every house he builds in Stapleton, and offers it as an option at Lowry. Not every homebuilder he’s talked with this season, he adds, is feeling so good about the future.
Some marketers are saying that sustainability looms large in Colorado’s prospects to stay above the national recession and maintain relative prosperity next year. That’s true, they add, both for small scale efforts like Harvard’s, and mega-sized projects that are proving solar and wind power’s potential in far reaches of the state.
“Colorado has always been on the sustainability forefront, with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and other research centers,” says Janet Shapan, marketing director for River North, building the Beleza luxury condo project along the Platte riverfront near downtown. Developers there are planning a LEED certified building with “smart technology” that closes and opens blinds for better performance, and plug-ins that will allow owners to charge new designs of electric cars.
“To have value in a home is going to require that you look at smart, sustainable technology,” Shapan adds. “Homes with that will hold their value against homes that aren’t built to same standards.”
To capture that advantage, energy planners are already working with builders and other sectors to create an energy efficient construction program that will carry new homes in Colorado to a higher level of performance. “The state of the economy, together with the winter we’re experiencing, is like a perfect storm that’s bringing builders, Realtors and utilities together,” says Jack Zelkin, who’s consulting with some of the potential participants that will include XCEL Energy, Colorado Association of Realtors, the HBA, Smart Energy Living Alliance, and the Governor’s Energy Office.
The latter helped create a new exhibit on energy at the Colorado Convention Center, on view for the next five years…including panels on the large-scale SunEdison project near Alamosa, and on Harvard Communities’ small-scale homebuilding at Stapleton.
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Tags: Colorado, Denver, Harvard Communities, photovoltaics, Renewable Energy, Stapleton
