A carbon-neutral Christmas

Houses dripping with lights that draw electricity just didn’t seem like Christmas to Paul Zanecki, chief executive officer of Nexus EnergyHomes Inc.

“They’re using all fossil fuels,” he said in a telephone interview. His company is building the energy-efficient North Pointe neighborhood in Frederick, which will have 59 houses. They are designed to capture solar energy they can use, plus excess to share with the electrical grid.

Between sharing extra energy that the houses capture and drawing energy from the grid as needed when solar energy is low, the net effect is zero energy consumption in the Nexus homes, he said.

For older homes that do not have the latest technology, the Christmas decoration extravaganza that Zanecki and his partners saw was disturbing.

“Look at the electricity that must be drawing,” he said. “Why can’t we give somebody a carbon-neutral Christmas?”

Frederick City Hall is receiving their gift.

Nexus and Advanced Technology & Research Inc. are donating temporary solar panels that will power the lights on City Hall’s Christmas tree.

Advanced Technology makes a solar power unit that drives a sun tracking device that directs the panels to rotate and capture maximum sunlight, Zanecki said.

When Nexus finishes the installation, the wiring to the panels will go inside white plastic pipe, which will be striped in red tape to look like a big candy cane, and the battery box will be decorated to look like a big package, he said.

The rotating panels are 30 percent more efficient than the ones the Nexus homes use, he said.

Mayor Randy McClement and his executive assistant, Josh Russin, welcomed the gift as an opportunity to set an example.

“I think it is a great idea to show our residents alternate forms of power,” McClement said in an email. “We also appreciate their efforts to build a net-zero energy community in the city’s north-end.”

It took Zanecki’s company three years to design the systems that run the North Pointe houses, he said. The community will have 59 homes when complete. It is the first neighborhood of its kind that the company is developing, but it builds individual houses that use the same energy systems, Zanecki said.

The donated solar panels will be in place to light the trees until Jan. 3.

“It is a great way to demonstrate how sustainable, alternative forms of energy can meet our power needs, whether it is powering a Christmas tree or a single family home,” Russin said in an email.

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