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A Florida community developed by Pearl Homes was designed to generate 98% of the power that its 86 homes would consume, but after tracking three months of operations in 12 of those units, Pearl Homes discovered that its building efficiency exceeded expectations. The residential community, Hunter’s Point, is made up of net-positive homes that export 57% of their kilowatt hours (kWh) to the community grid across all of the project’s lots.
The powerhouse behind the project is a network of batteries that harvest solar energy and redirect stored power to offset specific periods of grid congestion. That method, if replicated, could entirely change the standard energy system design for master planned communities to create a more renewable grid that benefits not just individual homes, but the community as a whole, Forbes reports.
“Showing 57% is unprecedented and it means that we exported 8,000 kWh back to the grid,” [Marshall] Gobuty said. “This includes Tesla car charges and pools, which were not part of our original projection. Even then, we’re still beating our estimates by a long shot.”
So, a net positive home in Hunters Point can send 8,000 kWh back to the grid, equating to enough kWh to power the average home’s total electricity use for 266 days or to power a whole year of air conditioning usage for four homes.
