Denver new homes are able to boast about all kinds of lower carbon emission features.

One of the best features is the ability to sell electricity that you do not use back to your electricity company. Also, there are several ways in which you may do so - primarily, net metering, net purchase and sale, feed-in tariff, and time of use metering.

How cool is that?!

A. Solar Power as Standard Feature to New Homes in Denver

Owners of new homes in Denver are protected by law when it comes to solar power. "HB 1149, enacted in May 2009, requires builders of single family homes to offer solar as a standard feature to all prospective homebuyers. Builders are required to give the buyer the option to either have a photovoltaic (PV) system or a solar water heating system installed on their new home, or to have all the necessary wiring and/or plumbing installed so that they can easily add a solar system at a later date. The builder must also provide the buyer with a list, maintained by the Governor's Energy Office, of every solar installer in the area, so the buyer can obtain expert help in determining if their home's location is suitable for solar and what the estimated cost savings would be." (www.dsireusa.com)

(Photo courtesy of JoeBehrSoCal, Flickr.)

B. Net Metering to Customers

Prior to these Denver new homes for sale being built the construction companies ensured that the local utility companies were in conformance of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. According to Section 1251, of this act, "all public electric utilities are now required to make available upon request net metering to their customers:

"(11) NET METERING.-Each electric utility shall make available upon request net metering service to any electric consumer that the electric utility serves. For purposes of this paragraph, the term 'net metering service' means service to an electric consumer under which electric energy generated by that electric consumer from an eligible on-site generating facility and delivered to the local distribution facilities may be used to offset electric energy provided by the electric utility to the electric consumer during the applicable billing period." (www.wikipedia.org)

C. Renewable Energy Credits

"Renewable Energy Credits is part of a new program in many states where electricity suppliers that are required by law to invest in renewable energy buy tradable certificates (from clients)." (www.businessweek.com) Colorado is one of those states that carry such requirement.

It all starts with solar panels (aka photovoltaic cells or tiles). Your Denver new home will be constructed and delivered with these already mounted on the roof.

In a nutshell: "Simply put photovoltaic tiles and other forms of solar energy work by converting some of the energy in sunlight into a clean form of electricity that can be used in our houses. The PV cells consist of a positive and a negative slice of silicon placed under a thin slice of glass. As the protons of the sunlight beat down onto the PV cell they knock the neutrons off the silicon. The negatively charged free neutrons are attracted to the silicon but are trapped by the magnetic field that is formed from the opposing fields. Small wires on the silicon catch these neutrons and when connected in a circuit an electric current is formed.

This reaction gives Direct Current electricity though, and it must be passed through an inverter to be converted into an Alternating Current used in our homes to power any electrical items. Some of the power is lost in this part of the process as the inverter is only around 95% efficient but this is a much greater efficiency than was once available." (www.ezinearticles.com)

Firstly, "in this context "Net" refers to what remains after deductions." (www.wikipedia.org)

Net metering is for those owners of Denver new homes that have chosen to have solar power already installed. Since most electricity meters are now able to read the flow in both directions you won't have to buy any additional parts from your energy provider. You are charged for the power you use and that which you don't, the electricity company gives you a credit for it.

This is where the Renewable Energy Credits come in. "Though customers can't yet sell electricity to other customers, since they're constrained by having to send their electricity through the existing grid, there are ways to make a profit. The most common way is through selling renewable-energy credits, which are credits clean-energy producers receive and sell to utilities so that utilities can meet their quotas for deriving energy from renewable sources.

Brokers get in touch with local energy producers and purchase the credits, then aggregate them and sell them to the larger utilities. The producers usually get between $200 and $300 for every megawatt hour of energy they generate in a given year. They're not selling the energy itself, but instead are being rewarded for producing their energy cleanly and sustainably." (www.wikipedia.org)

The only incentive in this type of program is that you are leaving a smaller carbon imprint versus, say, with net metering where you are receiving something of monetary value in return.

With net purchase and sale you buy from the utility company at retail rate and sell to the company at wholesale prices. Also, two meters are required for measuring both flows of energy.

(Photo courtesy of llovey 48, Flickr.)

With this program there is also the two meter requirement. Here, owners of new homes in Denver are sold energy at a special rate as an encouragement to use renewable energy.

"Then your electricity contributions to the power company are paid at a preferential rate as an incentive to generate renewable energy. A significant number of countries in Europe and Asia offer feed in tariff plans with the preferential rate often 2 or 3 times the normal consumer retail rate. Some countries also target the type of renewable energy. For example in Germany the preferential rate for wind power is less than for solar power." (www.ezinezarticles.com)

In this instance "time of use" refers to time of the day, not how long your meter runs. "Time of Use metering uses smart metering technology capable of measuring electricity usage by time of day and by season." (www.ezinearticles.com)

(Photo courtesy of freefotouk, Ian Britton,Flickr.

At night, when the requirement for energy is low, companies will charge lower electricity rates. "Power companies have a Base Load, which is the amount of power they require to meet minimum demands based on expectations of customer requirements. At night when demand is low they discount electricity to encourage usage to fill the base load demand they have to generate anyway. During the day they have to supplement with additional generation capacity to meet demand." (www.ezinearticles.com)