Environmental Pioneers Sought For World's Greenest Building

Independence Station, the Oregon development slated to become the World's Greenest Building when it opens in 2010, is now accepting priority pre-reservations for the 15 condominium-style homes included in the mixed-use development. Living in a building with the highest LEED rating ever awarded, these 21st Century Oregon Trail Pioneers have the potential to make history by setting new international benchmarks for full lifestyle energy and water efficiency.

The one- and two-bedroom condominiums in Independence Station range in size from 600 to 1,660 square feet and in price from the $300,000s into the $600,000s. As part of the World's Greenest Building, homeowners will enjoy many environment-saving benefits throughout the building such as radiant floor heating and cooling, displacement ventilation, solar water heating, day lighting design, an ice-based cooling storage system, water-based ground source heat pump, extensive use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and electric cars, just to name a few. During sunny months, their homes will rely primarily on solar energy collected in a unique 120-kilowatt installation of photovoltaic panels. In cooler, cloudier months, energy will additionally be generated, stored and managed through a biofuel cogeneration and thermal storage system. The system's backups? A retired tugboat engine affectionately named Mabel, which runs on waste vegetable oil from local restaurants and a massive battery bank.

"The people who will live at Independence Station will be pioneers like those who braved the Oregon Trail and founded our town," said Steven Ribeiro, of Aldeia, LLC, and the driving force behind the development. "These pioneers, however, will be embarking on a quest to demonstrate to the world how responsible energy consumption can look. Our goal is to provide a platform for a very comfortable and elevated lifestyle while consuming just 17% of the energy and a fraction of the water that the average American consumes today. We want to document and demonstrate that National Energy Security is possible today with off-the-shelf components and common sense application of simple, junior high school level physics." Ribeiro says that this is a "Thomas Edison meets Bill Gates" project.

While enjoying all the comforts of a modern "Smart Grid home," the 15 homeowners within Independence Station must become the subjects of published open source data on energy and water usage. Because of the building's design, Ribeiro expects the homeowners to easily shatter current energy and water consumption records while inspiring more of this type of development worldwide. Independence Station will also be a marketing showcase for manufacturers of authentic green products and green technologies. Bus tours to the building and classes in an adjacent venue during construction are being planned as early as this summer. Ribeiro claims that Independence Station will be the highest performing, most comprehensive Smart Grid project ever built, anywhere in the world.

"Where else can you find a hybrid biodiesel condo"? asks Ribeiro.