Just as history features the Last of the Mohicans, perhaps one day it will also feature the Hunters Point pioneers.
Sometimes being the first has its drawbacks. It does not seem to be the case, at least for William Fulford, resident since the fall of 2022 in one of the 22 homes already inhabited – the total development will be 86 – and, together with his wife, the second neighbors who moved to this complex. Florida, one hour south of Tampa, in the Gulf of Mexico area, where no one pays their electricity bill.
“It was something unexpected,” he says in a telephone conversation, without suppressing a laugh.
If there is no bill for energy consumption, it is not because they have subsidies or something special: it is due to the design.
The houses have 14 solar panels and a twelve kilowatt hour domestic battery in their utility closet.
On any given day, the solar panels on the Fulfords’ three-story residence produce twice as much energy as the family consumes. They use part of the electricity to recharge the battery, which powers their home at night, and the rest they transfer (sell) to the public electricity grid. Previously, at their home in Virginia Beach (Virginia), they paid up to 600 a month for this concept. “We don’t have a receipt here,” William, 76, a retired contractor, laughs again.
They have even been told that they will receive compensation for their contribution to public service. This set works under the concept of a virtual power plant. If there is little demand, the network contributes to charging the private batteries, but during consumption peaks, the public network uses private batteries to serve its users.
In reality, the Fulfords were attracted to the project without knowing what would happen to their electricity bill, and the area “is a great place to live,” a kind of paradise.
Hunters Point is the first residential development in the world to achieve LEED zero carbon certification, which means it operates with zero net carbon emissions and the entire community produces more electricity than it uses.
That’s according to Avery McEvoy, a carbon-free electricity researcher at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a clean energy think tank. “This development is a good example of thinking about a plan for the future,” she says.
“In a horizon with more climate change and risk meteorology, when you build a house or a community you do it for this generation, but also for subsequent generations, and it must be planned in an integrated and resilient way,” McEvoy emphasizes.
This is the architecture for the new times. “We are entering the era of climate adaptation, where we have to adapt to changing meteorological events,” he remarks.
According to Marshall Gobuty, founder of Pearl Homes, the developer of this project, they chose this land because it is “a pristine luxury location”, connected and surrounded by water. And at the same time, an area prone to destructive hurricanes. “We chose this specific location to build houses that will survive climate change,” she says.
Devastating winds, the great rises of the tide, “climate change is here and we have to build in these circumstances; “We have introduced changes so that our houses flourish, when others run out of supply or flood,” he clarifies.
In addition to reducing carbon emissions, solar panels and batteries make these homes less likely to lose power in the course of a superstorm.
William, seasoned in hurricanes in Virginia, has already passed a test in his new home. “I felt safe and we didn’t lose power,” he recalls, unlike millions of residences in Florida, like those on the streets beyond Hunters Point. “In our house, the light didn’t even flicker,” he says.
Gobuty describes it as sustainable and resilient construction. They raised the streets of Hunters Point, nestled on a peninsula bordered by the Sarasota Canal, by more than three feet and created a low-level central park to drain water from the streets after flooding. Each of the houses is built on a first floor garage, so the residential part is five meters above the flood zone. The walls are designed to withstand winds of 240 kilometers per hour.
It took Pearl Homes seven years to put together the project. There are now 12 homes under construction. They cost 1.3 million dollars. Compared to others in the area, says Gobuty, they are more affordable, offer savings on electricity bills and clean air.
At Christmas, the Fulfords traveled to Virginia to see family. William says that he was counting the days until he returned.
