Georgia Power and Southern Company Partner with Solar Community
Georgia Power and its parent company, Southern Company, are working in partnership with Cadmus Construction to create a solar community of eight total-electric and ENERGY STAR® qualified homes in Roswell, Ga. The development, called Weatherford Place, was planned with a holistic approach to energy efficiency and environmental design. It is the first neighborhood development of its kind in the Southeast to apply for Platinum level LEED-ND® certification, which is the first national standard for neighborhood design and integrates the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building. Green developer Cadmus Construction is creating the development to bring together the best of alternative energy resources and utility management, distribution, service and support as a total network solution.
As part of the partnership, Southern Company engineered and installed a hybrid metering system for the neighborhood. With this system, the homes will be billed for electricity at the regular residential rate, but will have a second meter to register the production of electricity from their solar roof systems. Georgia Power will "buy back" electricity produced by the solar panels. "There could be a few months each year where there is a credit to the homeowner's account," said Leonard Haynes, Southern Company executive vice president of Supply Technologies, Renewables and Demand Side Planning.
"Weatherford Place will provide renewable energy to the electric grid, with much of it coming at peak demand times." While saving the homeowners money, the design and construction of the homes will also greatly benefit the environment. "The integrated solar roof system uses the sun's thermal energy to produce hot water for the homes and photovoltaics to produce electricity," said Simone du Boise, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB, owner of Cadmus Construction. "This system alone provides the capacity for this community of eight homes to eliminate more than 180 tons of carbon emissions per year."
Other environmental features used in the neighborhood include rain-harvesting and stream buffer restoration, as well as green design and engineering methodologies, which will help offset hundreds more tons of emissions. The development received a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) score of 47, which means the homes will be 53 percent more energy efficient than other new homes built to the 2006 Energy Code. As part of the development's green impact, Southern Company and Cadmus Construction are also partnering with Kennesaw State University on a related environmental education outreach initiative.
This initiative will use Weatherford Place as an environmental development model for Kennesaw students to study in core science and science education classes. "Georgia Power and Southern Company, working with Kennesaw State University and Cadmus Construction, have provided a genuine collaborative effort that has made this project possible. These extraordinary human resources have come together as a family with the belief that we all share common ground and together we can build a better environment," said du Boise.
"Weatherford Place represents alternative energy solutions at work right here in Roswell, in one of our local communities," said Haynes. "Because these solutions are practical and repeatable, this development can become a model for others around the country." The first home in Weatherford Place has been completed, with the other seven scheduled to be built out in 2008.
