A team of students from the University of Minnesota came up with the winning entry in this year’s Race to Zero competition with a 2,544-square-foot two-story house designed to be affordable as well as energy-efficient.

The OptiMN Impact Home was designed specifically for infill lots in North Minneapolis and meets both the Department of Energy’sZero Energy Ready Home标准和明尼阿波利斯市建立的计划称为绿色家园北。该项目是大学之间的合作Urban Homeworks,明尼阿波利斯的邻里开发计划。

根据DOE，竞争的目的，现在在其第二年，是生产可负担得起的零能量家庭，可以由主流建设者建造。比赛从加拿大和美国的27名不同大学吸引了33支球队，上个月在全国可再生能源实验室宣布的金色，科罗拉多州的赢家。

DOEhas posted a full list of entries有关其网站的房屋的详细信息。

Housing for a hard-hit part of town

The university team targeted a vacant lot in a section of North Minneapolis that was struck by tornados in 2011 and also affected by the foreclosure crisis a few years earlier, according to a fact sheet distributed by the team. There are many vacant lots in the area where Green Homes North plans to build 100 energy-efficient homes.

The house is designed for a 40-foot-wide lot with its long axis aligned east-to-west, to make the most of solar gain. With most Minneapolis house lots running east-to-west, the team said, the design would be well suited to the area.

Among the features of the winning design are Energy Star appliances and windows, WaterSense low-flow plumbing fixtures, rainwater storage, LED lights, photovoltaic panels, low-VOC paints and finishes, and concrete made with fly ash.

成品总面积为1,696平方英尺，另外848平方英尺也可以完成。该设计包括三间卧室和1 1/2浴室（加上另一间卧室）。

Some of the details:

• Foundation: The slab and footings are insulated to R-10, foundation walls to R-15. Moisture control comes with capillary breaks, a waterproof membrane, perimeter drainage, and a sealed sump.
• 外墙：2×4螺柱墙体护套，带有玻璃纤维垫的螺柱之间的绝缘，并在外部绝缘，带有3英寸的挤出聚苯乙烯绝缘，用于R-32的总R值。
• Windows：双窗格，低E单位，U-F值为0.27，太阳能热增益系数为0.20。
• Roof: Vented truss construction with a clerestory; insulated to R-53 with a combination of rigid polyisocyanurate and fiberglass batts.
• Mechanicals: For combined space and water heating, a Polaris condensing water heater plus a SEER 14 air-source heat pump. Heating and cooling distribution via forced-air ductwork.
• Whole-house ventilation: Venmar energy-recovery ventilator.
• 光伏系统：2410瓦PV面板，总额定容量为8.2千瓦，估计年产量为10,337千瓦时。用光伏，房子的得分为0。

学生估计，房子将耗资226,797美元，以便在一个四口之家内部建造，中位数收入约为64,000美元。