"SMART" HOMES IN PARIS TO CUT ENERGY

The world's first commercial "smart" homes equipped with sustainable energy from microgeneration technologies will be ready for occupation in Paris next year.

The Smart Energy Home (SEH) consortium will design its homes as a whole unit. The first phase will renovate older apartment blocks.

SEH expect that "smart" city apartments blocks - that will contain 200 dwellings - will drastically cut down the amount of personal energy used.

Some of the technologies include wind turbines, solar panels, concentrators, thermal wall insulation and smart energy management systems with sensors that monitor where there are people in a house and turn heating and lighting on and off depending on where it is needed.

Other more advanced innovations use phase-change materials to even out fluctuations in temperature inside a building. These wax-like materials are embedded into the walls, storing heat when temperatures are high by melting. When external temperatures drop, the materials solidify and release the trapped heat back into the house.

And to even out seasonal changes in temperature, the "smart" homes will collect excess energy during summer and use it to freeze a block of water in the basement. When the building next needs cooling, the water can be melted.

ÿ"The lowest hanging fruit, the easiest money to be made is in existing buildings," said Laszlo Bax, director of the SEH project. "Of course, in a new build you can go further and have a better result in the end."

Eventually the consortium plans to build zero-emission homes from scratch and then "active houses" which can provide energy for themselves and sell excess into the public grid.

SEH was set up by the EU-funded project called SusChem that is aimed at introducing new sustainable technologies into buildings.