The some 200 houses in KB Home’s new Shadow Mountain neighborhood are built to maximize energy and reduce emissions.
There are no gas lines in the community.
Solar panels charge batteries that can in turn power the house when there’s stress on California’s power grid.
There are also simple things, like energy-efficient insulated windows.
“We can learn from how these windows are applied, for example, so that we can go in and figure out how to retrofit windows," said Ram Narayanamurthy, who is with the Department of Energy.
He says the idea is to determine how best to adapt new innovations to older homes to help make them more resilient as California’s climate changes.