Located in Costa Rica, the team of farmers, entrepreneurs, artists, developers, architects and teachers have developed 'Lots for Sale' where residents can build their own eco homes on Kopali Communities' permaculture farm with local organic food and clean drinking water.
The land that Kopali Communities sought for their eco villages had to contain the following features, according to their YouTube video: "eternal spring-like weather," "food security" and "water security." One of the crucial tenets of Kopali Communities is connectedness: they strive to be connected to where food, water and energy is sourced
Eco Village residents will have community produce gardens and common green spaces and walking trails. There are even plans for a small fleet of communal electric cars. Houses are designed to qualify for LEED-Platinum certification.
Houses have their own photovoltaic arrays, between 5 kW and 6 kW in capacity, plus solar thermal systems designed to provide about half of the domestic hot water demand. A separate 75 kW PV installation at one end of the property will provide power for community purposes, such as lighting, and will also produce revenue that can go toward additional construction.
The many energy enhancements should save a family between $200 and $300 per month in utility bills when compared to a conventional home of the same size and $100,000 over the course of the 30-year mortgage.
Since the project was launched, there has been a 69% increase in the number of volunteer hours donated to the local Habitat chapter, and a 59% jump in the number of volunteers. In all, hundreds of volunteers donated 16,000 hours of time to get the first part of the project complete.
But what if every wind turbine became a node in an energy internet, communicating with the grid and each other to adjust electricity production while storing and releasing electricity as needed?
La conexión, las predicciones de cuánta energía necesitarán en los próximos 15 minutos y una pequeña batería, lo hacen posible.
Por qué publicamos en mimbrea, porque aunque es de una escala mucho mayor, porque, como dice el artículo, en Europa los estados están legislando para favorecer las energías más predecibles y porque si se desarrolla puede pasar pronto a menores escalas.
Ganó el premio del concurso de Bill and Melinda Gates "Reinventar el Baño": "The process of supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) also produces excess heat, despite the presence of water. Energy is only needed to start the system initially, once it reaches a certain temperature the remaining hot water may be supplied to the community directly or used to power an electrical generator."
Estamos hablando, naturalmente, de autosuficiencia energética, sostenibilidad y ecología. Y es que el 100% de la energía que consumen estos alemanes se genera gracias a molinos de viento, paneles solares y biogás. Los precios, además, se fijan entre todos, consiguiendo estar así un 30% más bajos que la media.
"La comarca cuenta con 2.100 habitantes y 82 MW eólicos, repartidos en tres parques. El 20% de la población total de la comarca tiene un empleo ligado directa o indirectamente a la eólica. El 20% de los ingresos del Ayuntamiento proceden de la eólica y se han reinvertido en el desarrollo de actuaciones de interés comunitario que han mejorado la calidad de vida de los vecinos."