Each of the 10 homes have been retrofitted with a suite of electrical and hybrid heating technologies depending on the specific home.

Homeowners were selected based on a number of criteria including:

• Requirement for them to own an electric vehicle

• Size of home

• Suitability of roof to host solar panels

• Type of home heating and cooling system

• Willingness of to share data and allow occasional site visits for monitoring and servicing the equipment

Having multiple, independent electrical and thermal energy solutions in one house requires an energy management system to aggregate and dispatch these resources throughout the house.

The electrical equipment is designed to create, store and deliver electricity and includes:

• Roof-mounted solar photovoltaic cells

• Battery storage system

• Level 2 electric vehicle charger

Specific electrical components include:

• Electric vehicle supply equipment

• Solar panel module

• Solar inverter

• Solar integration system

The hybrid heating system components vary depending on the home and are designed to:

• Maintain a hot water, thermal microgrid that uses a hot water air handler and a high efficiency natural gas appliance to generate hot water as a replacement for the home’s conventional natural gas furnace and tank-type water heater.

• Enable dual fuel (natural gas and electricity) capabilities for home heating using a high efficiency boiler and an air source heat pump to support the hybrid heating capabilities.

Thermal equipment varies by home and includes one of two packages.

Package one:

• Tankless gas water heater

• Air handling unit

• Air source heat pump

• Micro combined heat and power with external transformer

• Storage tank
  

Package two:

• High efficiency boiler

• Air handling unit

• Air source heat pump

• Storage tank