- Remember the Jetsons?

They had gadgets galore

from holograms to a robotic maid,

but they also probably had an astronomical electric bill

as well as a massive carbon footprint.

That's still an issue for our own home of the future,

but unlike the Jetsons,

we're actually using some of that cutting edge tech

to solve it.

(light music)

As homeowners of the future

we'll have more ability to monitor our energy consumption.

But before we get to that,

let's talk about where that energy's coming from,

because the home of the future will always need power.

We built our home to generate a lot of its own power

from solar panels installed on the carport roof.

In fact, the solar panels are the carport roof.

- It's an integral part of their house

architecturally, and that was part of the design

of the house from the beginning.

- [Grant] Stan Pipkin is the owner of Lighthouse Solar

here in Austin,

which specializes in integrated solar design.

- [Stan] When Carter put up panels on the white house

(laughter)

nobody liked 'em because they were big,

they were bulky, they stood out.

- But these are something entirely different.

- [Stan] This gives architects something to

go wild with.

(upbeat music)

- [Grant] If you look around Austin,

this is very different than most solar retrofits

that have the panels tacked onto the roof.

Our solar installation is deliberately

and artfully designed,

made to feel like a natural, essential part

of the house itself.

- I think the whole industry understands,

it's silly to sorta slap solar on top of the building.

Why not make the building electricity generating itself?

- [Grant] This is Katharine Beisner,

an expert in solar technology.

- People are definitely trying to make the solar panels

better looking.

It's still by and large in residential,

putting solar on top of a roof.

Now a lot of them look like just gorgeous black

flat screen TVs and it's very low-profile.

And I suspect we'll see a lot of these products

in the future.

(upbeat music)

- [Grant] Here's how the system actually works.

- Each one of those squares individually is a solar cell.

They produce, collectively, DC power

that flows to the inverter.

And then it's changed to AC power

and that's what the house can run on.

- And any energy not used by the house

flows into a lithium ion battery.

So, let's say a homeowner installs solar.

Does that make them impervious from a blackout?

- So, unless you have a system that can island

away from the grid, or basically a microgrid,

your solar system will not help you during a power outage.

- So here in our home of the future,

we have a battery.

And so, we're prepared for a blackout.

- That's right.

So, this is a really special home,

you have energy storage that's wired to your critical loads

and if there's a blackout,

you can pull that energy to power your home.

(gentle music)

- This array, it'll produce enough energy to power

say, 60% of their needs on a given day.

It varies by clouds, season, shade.

- I think for the house of the future,

we probably want that to be more like, 100%.

Is it possible to scale the array?

- Absolutely.

The nice thing about solar, it's modular.

So, they can live in the house and then scale appropriately

over the first year. - Right.

- And so now we're empowering them will tools

to actually manage their house.

- [Grant] Which brings us to our energy monitoring.

Our smart home integrator, Pete Sandford of Smarter Homes,

has given us the ability to see a real time readout

of the energy usage of our home.

- We just jumped from 900 watts to 4700 watts.

That jump is gonna tell me

somebody just turned on the air conditioning

and it gives you the idea of,

wow that's how much energy I'm using.

- Wow.

We've put a lot of effort into designing our solar array

and our energy storage system into the house

to meet the majority of our needs.

On the other hand, all of our tech in this house

is probably gonna consume a lot of energy.

- You'd think so, but a lot of these devices

are Energy Star rated,

and they're considered low voltage items.

Your real energy hogs are gonna be you know,

your non-LED lights, your air conditioners, the hot water.

So, here I've brought the control pad for my home.

- [Grant] Does that say 875 watts?

- Yeah, when we started we were between 14 and 16,000 watts.

We worked really hard to get it that low.

So let's go in and turn on some air conditioners,

and then that way you can kinda get an idea of

the spike as well, so watch.

Downstairs, we'll go ahead and drop that down to 70.

Upstairs.

And let's go back and see how that's gonna affect

our energy. - Wow.

- This is pretty instantaneous

- Yeah. - As far as our reading goes.

It's already jumped up to 7241.

So at our house,

we loved what we did, we saw our new bill.

So we contacted Austin Energy

and we got this data from them.

So, this is before we automated.

- [Grant] Okay.

- And then, here's after.

And it looks dramatic just as it is,

but if you look at the scale.

These spikes are during our laundry times

and our shower times.

And it really enabled us to program our air conditioners

to where they weren't just kickin' on all day.

So, this is what you would do with solar.

So, you know, we hear a lot of solar companies say,

oh this is gonna cover 60% of your usage,

but how would they know?

So, having something like this when you'd be able to have

the data. - Right.

- [Pete] To support the value of having solar.

- You know, seeing this energy usage laid out

right in front of you

is a very eye-opening experience

because normally you just use your appliances

and you don't think how much it's costing you.

But once you see this,

the incentive is to game-ify it

to see how much you can save.

- Everybody, the kids, likes to see that number low.

It's almost like it turns into a mini-obsession.

One of 'em was like, "we're down to 450 watts,"

and I was like, that's the lowest we've ever been.

You win.

- It's like a new high score.

- Yeah, exactly.

New low score. - New low score.

(laughs)

(upbeat music)

- I think that becoming more aware

of our energy usage is the first step.

Not only will homes of the future be smarter

about how they use energy,

but they'll make us more aware of how our actions

influence that usage.

And even for those just passing by,

the house acts a billboard for a renewable future.

Thanks so much for watching me

explore the energy needs and abilities

in this home of the future.

Now I'm wondering, how would you power yours?

Let us know in the comments below

and we'll see you next with a brand new episode.