Home builders and homeowners across the country are turning to certified home energy ratings to understand how efficiently their homes perform. At the heart of this process lies a number called the HERS Index, a metric that has become a central tool for measuring and marketing residential energy performance. The rating process models the energy […]
Investing in solar power and home energy upgrades is an admirable step toward reducing your carbon footprint and lowering utility bills. However, as one Boulder, Colorado homeowner discovered, enthusiasm without proper planning can lead to expensive setbacks. Thomas David Kehoe set out to make his 1961 tract house as green as possible, with a 2,000-watt
The solar energy industry has experienced a remarkable transformation over the past decade, driven primarily by the steep decline in photovoltaic (PV) module prices. Grid-connected PV systems that once cost approximately $7 per watt to install have dropped to around $3.50 per watt in many regions of the United States, making solar electricity more accessible
When homeowners consider installing photovoltaic systems, the conventional wisdom has long been to orient panels toward the south for maximum annual energy production. However, emerging research from the Pecan Street Research Institute at the University of Texas at Austin suggests that this approach may not be optimal for all circumstances. A study focused on homes
