September 18, 2009, 3:30 pm

Zeta to Mass-Produce Efficient Homes
By Leora Broydo Vestel
Zeta Communities Zeta Communities, a high-efficiency modular home start-up in San Francisco, plans to open a 91,000-square-foot factory next week.
The same economic downturn that wreaked havoc on home manufacturers appears to be creating opportunities for Zeta Communities, a hopeful purveyor of ultra-efficient multifamily housing.


To date, the company has built just one 1,540-square-foot demonstration home in Oakland to support its thesis that high-efficiency can also be affordable.

The installed cost for the unit – which was factory-built and includes photovoltaics, automated energy controls and high-performance insulation – is about $165 a square foot. A comparable unit built on site would cost about $250 a square foot, according to Zeta.

Now flush with orders arising from the demonstration home, Zeta tells Green Inc. that it is poised to cut the ribbon on a 91,000-square-foot factory for building modular homes in Sacramento County.

The plant — on a former Air Force hangar that had most recently housed a conventional modular home factory — will have the capacity to churn out 400 prefabricated “green” units a year, according to Zeta representatives. The company plans to hire 200 workers — including some from the now defunct company that previously occupied the site.

The company is aiming to become the first mass producer of what is known in green building circles as “net zero energy” homes – those that generate enough renewable energy on site to equal or exceed their annual energy use.

The factory is scheduled to begin production next week.

“The reopening of the factory is symbolic of moving into the new green economy and creating new jobs,” said Naomi Porat, Zeta’s chief executive officer.


While the recession has slowed or halted many housing projects – including zero energy projects – private investors have continued to push the green building envelope.

Zeta, for example, received a $5 million infusion of venture capital financing last October.

Public agencies are also investing heavily in the zero-energy concept. The Department of Energy – which recently announced its own zero-energy initiative – is doling out $100 million for research projects that “advance zero-energy building technology.”

And state regulators at the California Public Utilities Commission are poised to approve $43 million for zero-energy projects, including the construction of pilot buildings and the development of ways to measure and verify their true costs and energy savings.

California agencies are already aiming for all new residential construction in the state to be zero-energy by 2020, with all new commercial buildings hitting the mark by 2030.

“At a government level we hope to provide funding for the private sector to ensure California has the most comprehensive zero net energy program in the world,” said Dian Grueneich, a C.P.U.C. commissioner. “Companies like Zeta are showing this is not some academic idea, but is something that can be done in the here and now with existing technologies.”

The efficiencies of building homes in a factory setting , together with an integrated design process (where the architect, structural engineer and construction manager work in parallel), contribute to reduced costs, Ms. Porat explained.

She said Zeta’s start-to-finish development process required 50 percent less time compared with the typical design-and-build process.

“It wasn’t just the credit crisis,” she said, reflecting on the financial drubbing home builders have experienced in recent years. “The old system was not sustainable or resource-efficient.”