Live Totally off the Grid in This Prefab Solar-Powered Home
In Canada, iLAND Solar Homes has created one of the first fully solar-powered and factory-built modular homes in North America. The company’s first home was officially inaugurated at the iLAND Development Center in the Laurentian mountains on October 25, 2018.
Daniele Oppizzi, the founder of iLAND has been based in Quebec since 2014. A trained architect, he built the first solar house in Switzerland 35 years ago and owns 15 international solar patents. One could say that green housing is his thing.
Oppizzi realized that most existing homes are difficult to convert to be self-sustaining and to fully benefit from solar energy. So he came up with a unique and affordable concept for new homes that were designed to be solar powered and green.
“Our homes were designed from the outset to be solar,” Oppizzi writes In a press release. “Building a solar home is a global concept that can not only be connected to solar panels.”
“Good insulation, high-performance windows, adapted design, solar hot water and photovoltaic panels, Canadian well air exchangers, pellet heaters, etc. are all elements to consider to make a real solar home.”
The solar panels on the outside of the homes capture the sun’s energy and power everything from the hot water to the electrical appliances.iLAND homes can be 100 percent autonomous, off the grid, and built in remote locations. All the homes can be LEED or Passive House-certified if desired.
The iLAND website notes that “The average energy consumption of a house in Quebec is between 200 and 250kWh/m2 per year and iLAND houses between 6 and 20kWh/m2 per year.”
That’s only $200 to heat around 100 square meters in Canada for an entire year. The houses are also 99 percent healthy houses that are built with non-polluting and recyclable materials. This is great for allergy sufferers or anyone who does not want to breathe indoor pollution.
The company offers dozens of home designs ranging from small homes to upscale multi-story homes. “The users won’t see a difference between a standard home and this home,” Oppizzi told CTV News Montreal.
Since the homes are factory-built and delivered to site, they take only five days to construct. The homes can be placed on piles, crawl spaces, or directly on the soil and the company does the finishing at the home site. These homes are also very affordable, costing only $1500 per square meter.
There are already commitments to build homes in several cities in Québec, Canada. This is a great start for the new company and it shows that even in cold northern climates, solar energy is the way to go.
