San Francisco’s first Passive House apartment complex produces so much energy it powers its own Microgrid

San Francisco's first ever <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house">Passive House</a> condominium apartment complex is rising in the Mission Creek neighborhood, and amazingly, this über-efficient 6 story building doesn't just conserve energy through a tightly sealed building envelope, it also generates and stores so much energy it will function as its own '<a href="https://building-microgrid.lbl.gov/about-microgrids">Microgrid</a>. The owner and developers <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SolLuxAlpha/?fref=nf">Lloyd Klein and John Sarter</a> of <a href="http://www.offthegriddesign.org/">Off The Grid Design</a> are excited to be building one of the first Passive House Certified Net Zero energy condominiums in California and one of the state's first Microgrids as well. The building will be considered a ‘<a href="https://building-microgrid.lbl.gov/about-microgrids">microgrid</a>’ because it is actually detached from the main city-wide San Francisco grid and instead powers itself and stores its own electricity in batteries; meaning that “if the electrical grid of the city goes down, the building will stay powered", says Sarter. Followers of green building technology and resilient design are excited to see this groundbreaking project go up in the north east corner of San Francisco's Mission district, and hope it will inspire future innovations in building design.

The owner and developers <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SolLuxAlpha/?fref=nf">Lloyd Klein and John Sarter</a> of <a href="http://www.offthegriddesign.org/">Off The Grid Design</a> are excited to be building one of the first Passive House Certified Net Zero energy condominiums in California and one of the state's first Microgrids as well.

The building will be considered a ‘<a href="https://building-microgrid.lbl.gov/about-microgrids">microgrid</a>’ because it is actually detached from the main city-wide San Francisco grid and instead powers itself and stores its own electricity in batteries; meaning that “if the electrical grid of the city goes down, the building will stay powered", says Sarter.

Followers of green building technology and resilient design are excited to see this groundbreaking project go up in the north east corner of San Francisco's Mission district, and hope it will inspire future innovations in building design.

The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SolLuxAlpha/?fref=nf">Sol-Lux Alpha building</a>, as the developers call it, is a luxury 4 unit condominium project at 685 Florida Street in the Potrero side of the newly dubbed <a href="http://sfist.com/2014/04/09/the_new_york_times_creates_mission.php">“Mission creek”</a> neighborhood of San Francisco (sort of the border between the north east Mission District and Potrero Hill).

The building is currently being constructed, as you can see in these construction photos below, and is expected to be complete in spring 2016.

Each 1760 square foot unit is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom floor plan. Both Klein and Sarter are optimistic that the building will even get close to “Net Positive Energy” due to all the energy efficiency measures employed.

Other energy saving features include a heat pump electric water heater and heat pump clothes dryer in each unit.

One of the main requirements of the Passive House model is the building’s exterior envelope must maintain a thermally tight construction, preventing infiltration of outside air and loss of conditioned air. <a href="http://rg-architecture.com/">Riyad Ghannam</a> of <a href="http://rg-architecture.com/">RG Architecture</a>, the project architect, said one of the many challenges of <a href="http://rg-architecture.com/?page_id=250">building a passive house building</a> was finding creative ways to minimize penetrations through the exterior walls in order to minimize thermal bridging.

The 100% electric-only building is designed to be fossil fuel free. The building includes a large roof deck and garden covered by a semi-translucent BIPV, bi-facial PV panel trellis system.

Inside the building, the energy recovery ventilation (ERV) provides continuous filtered fresh air and improved climate control and air quality for the residents while using less heating and cooling energy use.

There will also be "new to the USA" non-vented heat pump electric dryers specified for each unit. All the rest of each unit’s appliances will be top of the line Bosch "Benchmark", ultra low energy models.

The Sol-Lux Alpha building, as the developers call it, is a luxury 4 unit condominium project at 685 Florida Street in the Potrero side of the newly dubbed “Mission creek” neighborhood of San Francisco (sort of the border between the north east Mission District and Potrero Hill). The building is currently being constructed, as you can see in these construction photos below, and is expected to be complete in spring 2016....<br><br><a href='https://inhabitat.com/san-franciscos-first-passive-house-apartment-complex-produces-so-much-energy-it-powers-its-own-microgrid/'>READ ARTICLE</a>

Stay tuned for the building’s completion next year and see how well the passive house model performs in a 4 unit building. The Developers, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SolLuxAlpha/?fref=nf">Sol-Lux Alpha LLC</a> and <a href="http://www.offthegriddesign.org/">Off the Grid Design</a>, and their Passive House Consultant, <a href="http://www.essentialhabitat.com/about.html">Graham Irwin of Essential Habitat</a>, are showing how the common floor and wall areas between units help a building achieve the "highest bar efficiency" of Passive House Certification, and Net Positive Energy, in an very cost effective manner.