News 12 at 6 o'clock, April 2, 2009

AIKEN, S.C.---Going green. It's the new wave in housing and Aiken is on the cutting edge. The Ridge at Chukker Creek, in Aiken announced it will build a hydrogen powered home for extreme green home-owners.

It started with zero energy homes and now developers are going a step further, building the world's second ever hydrogen powered home right here in our own backyard.

This home may not look any different from yours or mine on the outside, or on the inside. But it's a high performance green home that's saving energy from the ground, up.

"We use foam based insulation in the rafter spaces and in the walls," says Chukker Creek Architect George Watt. That insulation cuts down energy use by 50 percent.

"It does cost a little bit more up front to do it this way but the goal here is to save money in the long run," adds Watt.

High performance homes like this one led the way to Net-Zero homes. Homes that use solar power as energy and cut down on power bills. Now developers are taking it a step forward, combining solar with hydrogen power.

"With our zero energy homes as a platform, we'll be able to provide hydrogen fuel powered homes," says Chukker Creek developer, Ron Monahan.

They say this hydrogen fuel cell packs the same punch as four car batteries. And when combined with the solar panels, it can really power up a house.

"That hydrogen fuel tank powers the fuel cell which makes electricity and we run on our hydrogen over the night or the couple cloudy days we have," describes Monahan.

And all this has people thinking, this could be the wave of the future. "This is very exciting and it's extremely groundbreaking and we're in Aiken, S.C.," exclaims Monahan.

"This could very well be how many of us power our homes," adds Fred Humes, the director of the Center for Hydrogen Research.

One of the reasons they chose Aiken was because of the influence of the Aiken County Center for Hydrogen Research, which is right down the road.

They're hoping to break ground later this spring.

As for the cost, this one is a prototype. So, they aren't sure how much it will cost. They did say their Net-Zero homes run about $40,000 to 50,000 more than their average homes.

However, the government does have tax incentives and rebates in place for these renewable energy homes, to make them more affordable.