High Performance Home Unveils Unsurpassed Luxury, Unparalleled
Energy Efficiency
4,500-Square-Foot Home Lives Large, Offers Energy Self
Sufficiency Without Sacrifice
HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwired - May 12, 2014) - Imagine keeping a
4,500-square-foot home cool throughout the hottest months of summer
and not paying a dime for your electricity. As improbable as it may
sound, it's now a reality as M Street Homes, M-CoGen, BASF, Reliant
and GE ecomagination have unveiled a new house in Houston that
blends luxury living with the highest level of energy self
sufficiency in a healthier, safer, stronger and smarter home.
The home -- dubbed SmartLux on Greenpark -- boasts a 39 Home
Energy Rating System (HERS) Index, which is the index by which a
home's energy efficiency is measured. It can also conceivably
create more electricity than it uses and can operate on or off the
grid. This high performance home also saves water, reduces air
contaminants and weathers storms better, all while providing an
unsurpassed level of sustainable living.
"Our goal in building this home was to combine high performance
and sustainability with luxury. People no longer need to
compromise. It is truly the home of the future," said Randy Erwin,
vice president of M Street Homes.
Leave it to Houston to find a way to blend luxury living with
modern sustainability. In a city that lives in humid, triple digit
temperatures during the summer, taking a Texas-sized luxury home
off the grid is no small feat. To achieve this milestone, SmartLux
on Greenpark uses a brand new technology, M-CoGen's PowerAire
system, to power the entire home. This micro-trigeneration system
is the first system of its kind available for the residential
market. It takes the traditional micro-combined heat and power
(MCHP) system a step further by adding cooling capabilities, which
is a significant share of traditional electricity use.
There are several incentives to building a home of this caliber,
as it was engineered to be energy efficient and structurally
superior. Financially, homeowners are able to save, and may even
earn money in the form of a bill credit on their electricity bill
because the home can generate more electricity than it potentially
consumes. This creates low to zero net electric utility bills and
excess electricity returned to the grid provides a bill credit
through a sell back plan and grid contribution agreement offered by
Reliant.
Living is easy at SmartLux on Greenpark. The home features four
bedrooms, four and a half baths, three living areas, a home
theater, a wet bar area and an elevator. The tallest ceiling
in the home towers at 28 feet while 78 windows ensure the home is
light and bright throughout. What's even more amazing? The home
only needs one five ton air conditioning system to cool it
throughout.
"Typically cooling and heating comprise the lion's share of
electricity usage in the average home," said Donald Williams,
M-CoGen CEO. "Our system is unlike any other on the market today in
its ability to offer both. Home electricity demand is reduced
by as much as 70 percent, while the house has a virtually
uninterruptable power supply. This advanced technology offers
homeowners the ability to stay fully functional on or off the grid
and could even create micro grids in the future if systems are tied
together."
M-CoGen's PowerAire system's multiple power redundancies include
solar power, a natural gas powered generator, rechargeable battery
power, and interconnection to the grid, all of which contribute to
a distributed solution, giving the home energy independence. The
system can even tie into wind energy, if available, although it is
not incorporated into this home.
The SmartLux on Greenpark home has sustainable features at every
turn. BASF Spraytite® closed-cell spray polyurethane foam
insulation and Enertite® open-cell spray polyurethane foam
insulation are used to insulate the unvented attic and walls
respectively. The closed cell foam in the attic strengthens the
roof while creating a conditioned attic for the HVAC system, which
is only three to five degrees warmer than the rest of the
home. Additionally, the open cell foam in the walls not only
insulates, but also air-seals, which helps to keep dust, pollutants
and allergens out of the home. Together these products seal and
blanket the home to provide a safe and comfortable environment for
the homeowners.
"While the BASF technology aides in efficiency with heating and
cooling, it also provides fundamental and structural benefits,"
said Chris Rosemond, construction science architect for the BASF
Center for Building Excellence. "The unvented attic, along with
state-of-the art insulation increases efficiency and racking
strength, making the home better equipped to endure challenging
weather conditions."
The home also provides a healthier indoor air quality as it is
designed to prevent the flow of air contaminants, such as carbon
monoxide, from undesirable locations. It is also better equipped to
manage moisture, which lowers humidity, and in turn, reduces the
development of mold, mildew and bacteria. A high quality -- MERV 10
(minimum efficiency reporting value) -- air filter was installed
and the home's filtration system continuously circulates fresh,
clean air throughout the home.
To top it all off, the house also has a highly efficient water
system. With an on-demand hot water button installed at every sink,
the home owner has hot water in seconds, rather than minutes in a
normal home, saving thousands of gallons of water a year.
GeoSpring™ water heaters, by GE ecomagination, a GE commitment,
reduce water heater costs by more than $365 a year, based on DOE
test procedures and direct comparison of a 50 gallon standard
electric water heater, using 4879 kWh per year, and a GeoSpring
hybrid electric water heater, using only 1830 kWh per year. This
comparison also takes into account the national average electricity
rate of 12 cents per kWh.
"GeoSpring™ Hybrid water heaters alone make a dramatic
difference in the sustainability and cost of a home's water
system," said Craig Lobel, founder of EcoEdge Consulting and lead
consultant for GE ecomagination in Texas. "Combined with the other
facets of the SmartLux on Greenpark home, the system created is
incomparable to any other residential home on the market."
"We are pleased to have been chosen as the retail electricity
provider of choice for this exciting new project. Reliant and NRG
Energy have a strong commitment to helping change the way consumers
think about how they use energy -- whether it's through plans like
our sell-back plan, or through the smart energy services we offer,"
said Scott Burns, Director of Innovation at Reliant.
"Our parent company, NRG, is known across the nation for being
an industry leader in the development of renewable and distributed
energy solutions like solar power and electric vehicle charging.
Taking part in advancement of new energy technology that is
changing the lives of consumers is an important part of who we are
as a company and we look forward to continuing to support customers
as they adopt new approaches to their energy consumption."
SmartLux on Greenpark has received several external stamps of
approval. The home meets requirements for several energy efficient
building standards, namely: Environments for Living Platinum,
BEYOND High Performance® approach from BASF, and the Department of
Energy Challenge Home. Additionally, it exceeds most requirements
for the GE ecomagination High Performance Home Program and U.S.
Green Building Council LEED® (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) for homes certification platinum.
For more information about the SmartLux on Greenpark home, visit
the microsite at www.SmartLuxonGreenpark.com.
About BASF - The Chemical Company BASF Corporation,
headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, is the North American
affiliate of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF has nearly 17,000
employees in North America, and had sales of $19.3 billion in 2013.
For more information about BASF's North American operations, visit
www.basf.us.
BASF is the world's leading chemical company: The Chemical
Company. Its portfolio ranges from chemicals, plastics, performance
products and crop protection products to oil and gas. We combine
economic success with environmental protection and social
responsibility. Through science and innovation, we enable our
customers in nearly every industry to meet the current and future
needs of society. Our products and solutions contribute to
conserving resources, ensuring nutrition and improving quality of
life. We have summed up this contribution in our corporate purpose:
We create chemistry for a sustainable future. BASF had sales of
about EUR 74 billion in 2013 and over 112,000 employees as of the
end of the year. Further information on BASF is available on the
Internet at www.basf.com.
About GE GE Appliances is at the forefront of building
innovative, energy-efficient appliances that improve people's
lives. GE Appliances' products include refrigerators, freezers,
cooking products, dishwashers, washers, dryers, air conditioners,
water filtration systems and water heaters. General Electric (NYSE:
GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better.
For more information on GE Appliances,
visitwww.ge.com/appliances.
About M-CoGen M-CoGen manufactures micro-combined cooling, heat
and power systems (MCCHP) designed to provide power for
residential, commercial, light industrial, military and government
markets. M-CoGen's patent pending hybrid MCCHP system can
achieve efficiency levels twice those of existing combined cycle
large-scale power generation systems. M-CoGen's MCCHP systems
reduce energy costs, increase energy efficiency, balance existing
renewable power generation systems, and greatly improve energy
security and power reliability all the while offering a clean and
continuous source of power. More information can be found at
www.mcogen.com.
About M Street Homes With roughly 70 years experience, M Street
Homes has a history of building, designing, and selling homes of
quality and value for their customers. The company is committed to
establishing a higher standard of stewardship to the health of
customers, the community, and the world by building homes that are
sustainable and more environmentally friendly. M Street Homes
adopted a comprehensive "green"-building program, coined "M Street
Edge", as its promise to build homes that are healthier, safer,
more durable, energy efficient, comfortable and environmentally
conscious than most competitors. To learn more, visit
www.mstreethomeshouston.com.
About Reliant Reliant provides electricity, smart energy
solutions, and energy services to business and residential
customers across Texas. Reliant is part of NRG (NYSE: NRG), a
Fortune 500 company that is at the forefront of changing how people
think about, buy and use energy. Backed by a diverse portfolio of
about 100 power generating facilities that can support over 46
million homes nationwide, NRG's retail businesses, including
Reliant, collectively comprise Texas' largest retail energy
provider and serves almost 3 million customers in 10 states and the
District of Columbia. For more information about Reliant products
and services, please visit www.reliant.com. Connect with Reliant on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/reliantenergy and on Twitter
@reliantenergy.
Media Contacts: April Lynch Fifth Ring 713-922-1895
april.lynch@fifthring.com Claire Jackson Fifth Ring 832-465-3563
claire.jackson@fifthring.com
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