It’s billed as ‘Europe’s greenest house’ – completely self-sufficient and without any harmful emissions. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe)

This home in Devon, UK, will generate power from solar panels and store it in hydrogen tanks rather than traditional, environmentally-unfriendly batteries. Could this be a blueprint houses of the future?

Powered by the sun. No energy bills – because it’s designed to capture heat. Completely carbon neutral. Entirely self sufficient. And it can even generate power for a car. 　

This family in Devon are aiming to create the greenest house in Europe – it is the first of its kind.

In the summer all the energy for the house will come from solar panels.

Some of the excess will be stored to make hydrogen – which will then be used for the house in winter when there’s less sunshine. And that hydrogen can also be used for powering cars.

Construction is now moving along fast, but getting planning permission was really difficult – to maintain the heritage of the land, they’ll be replanting historic woodland.

Then there’s the cost – at half a million pounds – just for installing the technology clearly most people can’t afford this kind of building.

Last year the UK proudly became the first major economy in the world to pass a net zero emissions law, but reducing our carbon footprint by 2050 will require a drastic move away from fossil fuels.

There’s some pretty ambitious targets, environmental targets, and we need to meet those over the next 10 to 15 years, unless there’s government support or subsidies, we’re going to struggle to meet those. With 40 % of the UK’s CO2 emissions coming from households, we need to think more radically about the way we live.