We all know that when the cold climate sets in, the power bill gets high. Saskatoon Engineer, Murray Guy, says otherwise. His net-zero home generates so much power that he doesn’t need to worry about any of his power bills piling up.

His house featured a self-sustaining energy generation that led to almost zero power consumption during the cold snap last January 2016. It came fully equipped with solar panels that gather energy from the sun and south-facing windows that let heat pass into his home. All of his light fixtures use LED which minimizes energy consumption and his appliances are also energy efficient.

“[Net zero houses] don’t have to look like a hippie house, they can be beautiful,” Guy says. “At minus 35 [degrees Celsius], our furnace did not have to run over those last two warm days,” he added.

Murray’s energy goal per year is to consume only as much energy as his house produces.

The high tech house also comes with a very intelligent thermostat system. It takes the family’s thermal usage pattern and learns it so it can adjust automatically to suit their needs.

“For every degree that you turn your thermostat down, you can save four per cent energy,” said Guy.

The house itself doesn’t go well with your average checkbook; the technology alone is at a whopping $50,000.00 over the price of a regular home.

The cold snap that happened last January hit Saskatoon very hard, energy wise. SaskPower and SaskEnergy both recorded the highest readings for the entire province. SaskPower reported a new peak of 3,600 MW, while SaskEnergy confirmed a 2 percent increase from power consumption as compared to last year.

Guy and other Net-Zero homeowners don’t struggle much with their bills, even with this report. Their houses opt for a greener solution to counter the increasing power usage by generating their own power.