Residential Total Energy System Installation at the Canadian Centre for Housing Technology

ABSTRACT Distributed cogeneration in single households may provide a viable alternative to the construction of new central power plants in the coming years. A key issue in residential cogeneration is how to size and integrate the required technologies to satisfy the total energy needs of the household, consisting of electricity, domestic hot water, space heating and space cooling. An interesting pathway to a more sustainable future involves the use of the earth surrounding the home as both a source and a sink for energy, especially if it enables the recycling of summertime waste heat from the generator. This demonstration project was planned and implemented at the Canadian Centre for Housing Technology (CCHT) in 2006. The CCHT, located on the campus of the National Research Council in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada maintains two detached, single-family houses that have the capacity to assess energy and building technologies with daily simulated occupancy effects. This article describes the residential total ener...