Lighting the way home to a sustainable future

A HOUSE that produces its own electricity and costs just €50 a year to heat is being unveiled in Britain this weekend by Irish company Kingspan Century.

Billed as “the most sustainable house in the world”, the zero carbon home called Lighthouse already meets stringent British government targets for sustainable building, set for the year 2016.

The Lighthouse prototype is the first house to match the highest level (6) of the building code for sustainable homes, revealed by the British government just two months ago.

“They told us when we started this project and design four months ago that it couldn’t be done,” Jonathan Jennings of Kingspan Century said yesterday when Irish media exclusively previewed the 950 sq ft two-bed family home with super low running costs. In contrast, most similar size Irish houses cost over €750 to heat, plus electricity bills.

This prototype house, whose combined design features can be transferred to mass housing developments, meets targets on energy efficiency, sustainability and carbon emissions, which are 100% greater than current Irish building standards.

“This house categorically proves that 2016 standards can be met in 2007; it should be seen as a starting point for even greater energy efficiency, and not as a dead-end for complacency. What we need in Ireland is a vision for the future of sustainable houses, similar to the UK,” said Gerry McCaughey chief executive of Kingspan Century.

He pointed out that new Irish building standards for energy efficiency are set to rise by just 40% by 2008, with no strategy in place to continue those improvements.

Lighthouse combines the best of current technologies, materials and design practices to have a house with the lightest possible touch on the environment.

It features low water usage, rainwater and waste water collection and recycling. It also has solar panels for water heating, 55 photovoltaic cells (capable of producing a voltage when exposed to radiant energy) for energy consumption, mechanical ventilation and heat recovery. There is an innovative ‘windcatcher’ for drawing air and light into the building. It also has extremely high insulation levels and air tightness, wood-pellet boiler and clothes drying room within its distinctive curved roof and 12 metre high frame, clad in locally-sourced sweet chestnut timber.

In Britain, the Lighthouse will cost just £31 (€50) a year to heat, and will produce enough electricity over a year to eliminate other energy bills, it is claimed. However, at present Irish consumers do not have the means to sell surplus power back to the power grid.

Construction costs, for this one-off prototype, are likely to be 40% higher than current standard costs, but this differential will erode over time as economies of scale take over. A standard 1,000 sq ft home costs its builder €100 per sq ft or €100,000 to build, excluding site values and other costs, so this Kingspan Century manufactured house is probably costed closer to €150,000 to deliver right now.

“This house is the most significant event in the development of sustainable zero-carbon housing the world has ever seen. It was devised to prove that the most advanced sustainable homes can be delivered at an affordable price. Its success will challenge governments all over the world to set the highest possible standards for new housings developments,” he added.

Design of the landmark lighthouse is by architect Dan Burr of Sheppard Robson, with engineers Arup and the Kingspan Century group.