What is HELIX?
HELIX facilitates consolidation of energy data in a single portal and makes it available to the real estate market
In the home buying process, what we don’t see tends to be forgotten. The new marble countertop and remodeled bathroom are gratifying and aesthetically pleasing, though efficiency investments and resulting energy usage are just as important. This is especially true considering energy is often the highest cost of home maintenance. Home Energy Labeling Information eXchange (HELIX) makes this information visible by auto-populating home energy labels (e.g. U.S. DOE Home Energy Score, RESNET HERS) and solar PV data in local real estate markets.
HELIX is capable of automatically populating real estate listings – whether they are accessed through local Multiple Listing Services (MLS) or portals like Trulia and Zillow – with home energy information from Home Energy Score and other sources when it is available and approved by the seller. HELIX currently has data for all 12 states and the District of Columbia in NEEP’s region, and is working to connect with local Multiple Listing Services. States and cities can use HELIX to manage voluntary and mandatory home energy labeling programs. A joint effort with NEEP and ClearlyEnergy was established to develop a cost-effective tool, Energy Estimator - Powered by HELIX & ClearlyEnergy, that pulls from publicly-available tax assessor databases and from HELIX to generate a customizable home energy label.
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If you are a data provider, MLS, state, or a community, click the box below to learn more about how HELIX can work for you!
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Capturing the Sun: HELIX to auto-populate residential solar energy data into the Multiple Listing Service
With the advancement of technologies and practices in the real estate market, homes have become increasingly efficient. At the same time, the price of solar PV is going down and more consumers are actively seeking it for their homes. However, solar panels (just like energy efficiency attributes) create confusion around how to properly appraise a home. Therefore, making solar PV information easily accessible to real estate professionals, as well as homebuyers and sellers, will create greater awareness and value of the benefits of solar in the residential marketplace.
In order to dramatically expand the auto-population of solar PV data into MLS listings so that the real estate industry can properly account for this asset, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), NEEP, and ClearlyEnergy are partnering to use HELIX for this purpose. With this grant, funded by LBNL and the U.S. Department of Energy, the project team continues to engage with stakeholders across the region to collect and store solar PV data. In the end, HELIX allows for a flexible and customizable solution to transform the real estate market towards valuing energy efficiency and renewable energy assets with the ultimate goal of greater savings, more comfortable living spaces, and the decarbonization of our residential building sector.
Check out NEEP’s Residential Labeling Dashboard to check how much data HELIX has in your region.