The Solar Village Prospect condominiums in Longmont are very energy efficient and purchase all of their electricity from the City of Longmont’s wind power program.

Credit: Solar Village LLC

Multifamily Buildings Category
Longmont, Colorado

Solar Village LLC opened a housing development in Longmont in April 2006 that the company hopes will develop into a model that can be repeated across the country. The project developers included solar energy systems into the building design in a way that enhanced the architecture instead of detracting from it.

	Use of Renewable Energy
	Project Team

This project involved building 16 condominiums, which range in size from studio to two bedrooms. The total size of the construction project involved 28,761 square feet of floor area.

Compared with a residential building of similar size built to the standard of local energy codes, the design team estimates these condominiums will annually save (based on modeling using DOE-2 software):

• 67,400 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year of electricity
• 3,055 therms of natural gas
• 71 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Use of Renewable Energy

The Solar Village Condominiums use the following strategies to take advantage of renewable energy:

• Solar power from a PV array rated at 3.5 kilowatts (kW. The array is connected to a common electrical panel that connects to all 16 condo units. The owners will pay electricity bills through the homeowners association.
• Solar hot water system that provides heat for domestic hot water and to radiant heating pipes laid into the floors. The system consists of 21 panels that feed hot water into a 1,500 gallon storage tank. This tank, in turn, preheats water for all heating loads, including both hot water and space heating. The building designers estimate the system will meet 100 percent of the requirements for domestic hot water and will substantially reduce heating bills in the winter.
• Passive solar design that takes advantage of south-facing windows that allow the winter sun to enter and are shaded in the summertime. The floors underneath the windows are made of gypcrete, a material made from mixing concrete and gypsum, which provides thermal mass for keeping inside temperatures comfortably steady in winter and summer.
• Green power from the City of Longmont’s green pricing program provides 100 percent of the electricity delivered through the grid from wind energy. The purchase is handled through a yearly contract with the city and is included in the homeowner’s association documents. This purchase cannot be changed except by a unanimous vote of the residents.

CRES 2006 Vice President Doug Seiter awards a member of the project team the 2006 Colorado Renewable Energy in Buildings Award.

Project Team

The following organizations share the 2006 Colorado Renewable Energy in Buildings Award in the multifamily buildings category:

• Solar Village, LLC in Boulder; developer.
• Michael Tavel Architects; architect.
• PCD Engineering Services in Longmont; mechanical engineer.
• DMW Realty and Development Company in Boulder; general contractor.
• Ecoenergy; energy modeling on the design team.