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Helping Minnesota communities determine their energy future

ORGANIZATION PROFILE:

HUNT UTILITIES GROUP (HUG)

HUG, A living laboratory in Pine River for building tomorrow’s resilient communitiesBy Corrine Bruning, CERTs Research Assistant • February 2011

The Hunt Utilities Group (HUG) has been involvedwith CERTs over the last five years, and is a leaderin the research, development and application oftechnologies and methods that support sustainableliving and environmental stewardship. We want totake this opportunity to highlight the history of theirwork and involvement in Minnesota communities.

Hunt Utilities Group pursues research through a “living laboratory” on their campus in Pine River,MN, specializing in sustainable living, renewableenergy, and high efficiency sustainable housing.Their ideas foster entrepreneurship and communityas their work inspires innovation and explores newand creative ways to build sustainable community.

Introduction and HistoryThe Hunt Utilities Group (HUG) is the creativeproduct of Paul and Lynn Hunt, who after a verysuccessful business venture, decided that the mostimportant thing they could do would be to helpcommunities, buildings, and people become moreresilient. They decided to create a research campuswhere people could learn, teach, and practice waysto live resiliently.

They envisioned a campus on a sizable piece of landwithin walking distance of a downtown. In 2003,they found land that fit that description near PineRiver and started their first building.

Pulling into the parking area, visitors encounterHUG’s first cob "old main" building with a playfuland nature scene cut into its exterior entrance.Today, cob isn't a material that is often used in building construction, but it has been used since prehistoric times and many very old cob structurescan still be found across the world. Today, HUG’swork with cob is displayed as a leader among do-it-yourself cob-home builders across the country andrepresents HUG's first foray into their search for asimpler, cheaper, more localized way to build andlive.

Old Main is a two story building with a bright andopen interior due to the large south facing windowson both the upper and lower levels. There is a wideopen meeting space and kitchen on the lower level,and offices on the upper level where Kathy Hoefs,Paul and Ryan Hunt, Bob McLean and many otherpeople do the work to make HUG a reality.

CERTs PARTNERS

University of Minnesota’sRegional SustainableDevelopmentPartnerships

Eureka Recycling

Southwest RegionalDevelopmentCommission

The Minnesota Project

Office of EnergySecurity, MinnesotaDepartment ofCommerce

CERTs FUNDERS

Xcel Energy’s RenewableDevelopment Fund viaOffice of Energy Security

Bush Foundation

Environment & NaturalResource Trust Fund

Cob, Miracle of the Earth

Cob is a building material generally composed ofclay-based soil or sub-soil, straw, and water, andmixed at the site of building like concrete. It isfireproof and inexpensive (but labor intensive),and serves as an excellent thermal mass, storingand providing heat in the winter and keepinginteriors cool in the summer.

“Old Main,” the original HUG cob building

The HUG ‘campus’, as they call it, is scattered with a couple of different buildings all inquest to develop an Agricultural Resilient Community. Such a community includes:

n Homes/multifamily dwellings that have connected greenhouses that provide food and aconnection to nature

n Super energy efficient buildings that contains the full cycles of water and waste

n A focus on local resilience, and local economy.

n Healthy people and a strong sense of community

It is the mission of HUG to do research on how to make efficient and sustainable buildingsfor sustainable communities and ultimately provide a more enjoyable lifestyle.

With each building they move closer to their goal. They have identified the easily cost-effective strategies, such as implementing south facing windows for passive solar. Theyhave also encountered the true challenges to building sustainable buildings, such as the costof some of the materials.

Paul Hunt, “We love cob, it is earthy and warm and artistic. It can make (and has made)wonderful houses that last 1000 years. It also takes a lot of manual labor. That makes it verydifficult to sell in the United States. Cob also requires learning how to treat it properly andmaintaining it. We want to design buildings that use sustainable materials but that contractors are also more familiar with.”

In some of their later buildings, including the houses they now live in, HUG did a lot ofresearch on the most efficient products, used them, and figuring out ways to mimic efficientproducts with more economical materials and technologies.

Projects and CERTs Involvement Hunt Utilities Group has the unique capability to imagine, innovate, and implement—theymake dreams and ideas a full and livable reality. They live among their work, letting theirnext ideas and curiosities emerge from their community, and learning from their built environment. CERTs has had the privilege of partnering on three of their major projects oncampus through the Central CERT Seed Grants.

HUGnet As one of their most recent developments, HUGnet is set to revolutionize community-basedenergy projects. HUGnet is an open source software program that collects data (temperature, heat flow, humidity, light, air quality) from sensors located amongst energyprojects around the HUG campus, allowing them to use this information to optimize futureprojects. These sensors shoot data to a central database, which then posts near real-timeresults on to their website. The goal is to make the software user friendly, so almost anylayperson can pick it up and understand with little direction what the numbers mean. Thus,Scott Price, creator of HUGnet, engineer, and IT manager, has been working to overlay thedata onto pictures of where it is coming from, say the south side exterior wall of a house.This information can be used to know how to store heat better, where cold spots are, andhow well buildings are performing.

Residential heat storageResidential Heat Storage is a heating system where a homeowner/ building manager cantake heat from another heat source such as a hot water heater, and store it for other heatinguses. In the HUG system, they drew heat from their hot water through a system of pipesand into an underground mass, in this and most cases, a large amount of compacted sand.The heat stored in the dense sand mass radiates upward into a living space over the span ofa few days. This is generally excess heat that would be lost in the heating process. By capturing the wasted heat off the water heater, the energy to the heat the water in the firstplace is more completely and efficiently used.

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Bio: Paul Hunt, Senior Partner

Paul has over 35 years experience designing andbuilding technical solutions, along with the business infrastructure to implement them. He isthe founder of Hunt Technologies, Inc. where hedesigned and sold an innovative new way toremotely read electric meters and was named the“Fastest growing technology company inMinnesota.” He and Lynn started the HuntUtilities Group (HUG) in 1998 and in 2003, thecampus became a living research laboratory forresilient community living.

HUG’s management team: (Left to Right) Ryan Hunt, R&DManager; Paul Hunt, Co-founder and Senior Partner; DougSwanson, Construction Manager; Scott Price, Chief HUGnetDesigner; Robert McLean, Chief Operating Officer. Not pictured: Lynn Hunt, Co-Founder and Senior Partner

An “ARC” house for the HUG Agricultural ResilientCommunity, with the Residential Greenhouse attached tothe home

Cob cabin on the HUG Campus

Residential GreenhouseHUG's research group set out to build a research greenhouse that let them test some designideas that could possibly provide the food for a community and energy simultaneously.The goal for the greenhouse was to "stack functions" much like the principles of permaculture. "A greenhouse that is part of a residence seems to have a lot of functionsgoing for it. It gathers huge amounts of solar heat in the winter. Even at night, it buffers thesouth side of the house from losing heat. It adds wonderful space to a house. It helps cleanand humidify the air (saving more energy). It helps feed the occupants, " says Paul Hunt.

Building Community around Community-BuildingHUG works under the premise that “people can only be resilient when their neighbors areresilient too.” This means HUG considers the whole community, and is one of the reasonswhy they chose a smaller town, Pine River in Cass County to be their home base. CassCounty has been very supportive of their goals, and Pine River is also very active as aGreenStep City.

HUG is a catalyst striving for total community sustainability. They are involved with andsupport numerous organizations and community initiatives. Such as:

n GreenStep Cities

n CERTs Biennial Conference

n Central CERT Steering Committee

n Region Five Development Commission's Sustainable Communities Regional PlanningConsortium (funded by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development)

n Regional Renewable Energy Roundtables

n Lakeland TV Board

n Initiative Foundation Regional Loan Committee

In the future, Hunt Utilities Group imagines innovating whole neighborhoods to be multifunctional, heating and cooling themselves while feeding the occupants and recyclingnutrients. Paul says, “Resilient communities stay enjoyable and abundant while facing theupcoming changes in both the environment and society. Those neighborhoods will catalyzeresilient communities on a larger scale.”

For more information about the Hunt Utilities Group, contact the Hunts at 218-587-5001, orvisit their website http://www.hugllc.com. The HUG campus is located at 2331 DancingWind Road South West, Pine River, MN 56474

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Bio: Lynn Hunt, Senior Partner

Lynn is a 15-year entrepreneurial veteran

managing high tech companies. Armed with an

MBA from Carlson School of Management at the

University of Minnesota, Lynn capably has worn

hats that cover most managerial issues and also

technology issues through the development and

successful of Hunt Technologies and now the

Hunt Utilities Group, LLC. There are more ideas

for companies floating around in Lynn’s head

than can ever be handled by one Woman, but

she is going to try and build a few more

companies before her great grandchildren arrive

and she is too busy to build anymore.

Bio: Bob McLean, Chief OperationsOfficer/General Manager

Bob provides operational and strategic directionfor the companies founded by Paul & Lynn Huntincluding Hunt UtilitiesGroup,LLC and ResilientProperties Management, LLC. He is also providessupport for the Hunt’s non-profit: HappyDancing Turtle. McLean also serves on the boardand is secretary/treasurer and chair of theendowment committee.

RREAL Solar Powered Furnace installation on the HuntUtilities Group research campus in Pine River, MN

Permaculture, Eco-oriented Design

Permaculture is an approach to designing human

settlements and agricultural systems that are

modeled on the relationships found in natural

ecosystems. It directs how you grow food, build

your environment, provide energy, and all other

functions needed for human and planet survival

in the most ecological permanent way possible.