The BBC has a story about a low cost zero-carbon house built by Cardiff university:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33544831

It looks very interesting so I went in search of more detail of how it is constructed and how much it cost. Apart from the usual insulation and solar panels etc it has the somewhat unusual feature of battery storage in a grid-linked house. I didn't find much information; just the place where I think it is supposed to be at some point in the future:

http://www.solcer.org/

But what amazed me were the number of different claims for what had been achieved on all the different sites reporting the story:

Cardiff U: 'the first low-cost energy positive house'
Daily Mail: 'UK's first 'smart' carbon positive house'
ITV: 'Its unique design combines for the first time reduced energy demand, renewable energy supply and energy storage to create an energy positive house.'

Posted By: fostertomAll that hardware within £800-1000/m2? (which is alleged to be the 'social housing' norm). Exeter City Council's pioneering 100% adoption of PH is coming in at £1400/m2 (which they say 'nearly' matches standard social housing).

That's why I was curious to find the costs. Clearly the windows aren't PH but I'd like to see how it all adds up. Where have they made savings?

PS Looking again at the Daily Fail quote, I see they've got it completely wrong (no surprise there, then). It's a carbon-negative house.

Its just been built and they are making all kinds of claims. As we know from past experience the reality after 1 or 2 years might be very different. I hope not but its hard to see how thy are doing for under 1000 / m2. I see that they are also using batteries. Any specs on this?
has anyone got a link to a site that gives accurate details of equipment and costs?

The news item says "The solar air system preheats the ventilation air, which is also warmed by a warm water store", and he says in the interview "the south facing solar air collector provides space heating for the house". Is the solar air collector the dark cladding on the upper side of the house? (I do something similar with my MVHR - collect warm air from under the south facing roof tiles and by-pass the heat exchanger once the incoming air is over a set point.) I notice in the interview they had fans running in the upstairs rooms. Could that be because of overheating?

Looks like it could be Tata Steel's Colorcoat Renew SC, integrated solar air cladding system.

Thanks Chris, it does indeed look like Colorcoat Renew SC. I've looked up their website: http://www.colorcoat-online.com/en/products/renew/ . Apparently their product includes destratification of the warm air, so that's what the fans I noticed would be for. I'm a tad sceptical about the claimed amount of energy collected. Maybe their typical application wasn't in the cloudy UK. Here in Hants we had so much cloud cover this past winter that I didn't notice much benefit until March.

They can make all the claims they like but the house has to be able to stand up to being used by a typical family.

I see that they are using a 6kW battery, pretty much a Tesla battery. Anyone know which battery they used ad how much it cost. I wonder if it is this that has made the project feasible! :)

Colorcoat Renew SC type system may work well due to noise or views you can't put windows on the south side of a building. Or you got a large south facing view on say a garage.