The most energy-efficient house in the world?

New home, "designed to be the most energy-efficient house in the world" will rely on intelligent building control and energy management.

A home that looks and feels better than normal, but with hidden sensors and controls so its energy requirements are ultra-low.

"This should be the most energy-efficient house in the world" says Mike Hillard about "Tranquillity", the self-designed home he is building in the Cotswolds.

His basic concept is of an airtight shell in which a building management system and controller from Honeywell monitors and controls the internal environment and its energy systems.

The building will be completed sometime this year.

The lengths to which Mike has gone to be almost totally reliant on captured solar energy and rainwater have resulted in ingenious systems of ventilation, heat exchange, water and energy storage.

There are more than 60 monitoring and control points in the Honeywell system.

The home is also designed to use a tiny amount of electrical power to make its systems work.

Optimisation and minimisation are everywhere.

"It could only be achieved with seriously intelligent building control and energy management".

" What Honeywell has helped us do here is amazing," stressed Mike.

"My aim was to create a home that looks and feels normal - nothing whacky like most so called 'eco-homes' - but with hidden sensors and controls to make its energy requirements ultra-low".

" I identified places where energy was lost or wasted and reduced losses to the bare minimum - again and again." To make it work, the Honeywell building management system monitors temperatures as well as CO2, CO, methane, particulates, solar radiation arriving and relative humidity.

Ventilation takes place when - and only when - there is deterioration from preset limits, and that ventilation uses the least energy possible to remedy the problem.

Fresh air is taken from a pre (solar) heated source when available and distributed through the building.

It arrives quietly in the main living spaces and is removed from the bathrooms, cloakrooms, kitchen and sauna from where it is expelled through heat exchangers that can further heat the incoming air.

The two wings of the L-shaped house flank a huge two-storey glazed solar room, 9m by 9m by 6m high, which is the home's main energy collector.

Based on local Meteorological Office data, Mike expects the solar gain to be sufficient even on cloudy winter days to maintain a temperature above 20 degrees C in the Solar Room, far more energy than will be needed to replace the minimised heat losses from the building.

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