Residential Building Activities
The Department of Energy (DOE) is leading several different activities to develop, demonstrate, and deploy cost-effective solutions to reduce energy consumption across the residential building sector by at least 50%.
The U.S. DOE Solar Decathlon is a biennial contest which challenges college teams to design and build energy efficient houses powered by the sun. Each team competes in 10 contests designed to gauge the performance, livability and affordability of their house.
The Building America program develops market-ready energy solutions that improve the efficiency of new and existing homes while increasing comfort, safety, and durability.
Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals foster the growth of a high quality residential energy upgrade industry and a skilled and credentialed workforce.
The Home Energy Score program rates a home's energy performance, similar to a vehicle's mile-per-gallon rating. The Score, provided by a qualified professional, includes a list of customized energy saving upgrades and estimated energy bill savings to help homeowners understand what improvement options are available.
Home builders can receive recognition for their commitment to constructing high performance homes through DOE Challenge Home Participating homes must be verified by a qualified third-party to be at least 40%-50% more energy efficient than a typical new home.
Home Performance with ENERGY STAR® is a model program framework that builds on the ENERGY STAR brand to help homeowners identify contractors who know how to make home improvements that increase energy performance.
The Better Buildings Neighborhood Program is a grant program that helps over 40 competitively-selected state and local governments develop sustainable programs to upgrade the energy efficiency of more than 100,000 buildings.