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High desert between 5,000 and 7,000 feet elevation, if you can find water. Easy to heat and cool with high thermal mass and good insulation and south facing glazing.
I live in apartment in southern california, about 15 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. So far this year, I have not used the central heater at all. I've turned on the Air conditioner about 7 or 8 times, in August & September when there were a few heat waves that also packed some tropical humidity. I just open windows here for cooling from April through November. Right now all windows and the sliding door of my apartment are wide open with outdoor air temp and indoor apartment temp about 74F/23C.
Higher elevation desert climates (such as Albuquerque and other parts of northern NM) offer cool enough night temperatures to cool down a home in summer, even when daytime temps reach well above 90F/32C. There is enough winter sun to get some passive solar heating to south facing windows, south facing solar water heating panels or solar power panels. I know a person in northern NM who has solar powered water heating panels that connect to an indoor heat exchanger tank, which then provides radiant floor heating for the small home (700 sq ft). That combined with a couple of south facing windows does a good job of keeping that home comfortable all winter with minimal consumption of grid energy.
I really do not like droughts or dealing with water-stress. So we focused more on water availability, low population-density, low land prices and low taxes. Which drove us to migrate to Maine.
Since building our home here, we have observed a growing trend here for Net-Zero energy homes.
We currently heat with wood and we have recently shifted to Solar Power. We plan to build a Solar-Thermal array next to reduce our wood consumption [granted we live in dense forest so there is no shortage of wood, but harvesting is a lot of work, as we age]. Our home is fairly large and we burn a lot of wood [3 to 3 1/2 cords a year]. We should be able to reduce our wood fuel consumption down to less than 1 cord /year.
As everyone knows already, it is certainly possible to make a Net-Zero energy home in Maine.
I suspect that powering a home with Photo-Voltaic panels is available everywhere.
Heating a home with Solar-Thermal is available everywhere.
Cooling a home with A/C units is very energy consumptive, if you can find an alternative method of cooling you would be ahead of the game. In some regions you can cool a home with a 'swamp cooler', I have owned homes before that used swamp coolers, but they do not work in all regions. In this region there is no need for cooling in the summer.
very warm climate with water close by. A lot of sun and slight wind. That would sound perfect. So, yeah deserts near oases. In Mexico desert it could be possible.
IF you go a little (or lot) underground . . . there is a much wider range. For Daylighting and Heating -- Sunlight can be captured across a wider range than even your underground structure and "tunneled" down.
I live in Seattle and seldom use my heat. My typical bimonthly electric bill is about $25, it's not easy though. I have to wear thermals quite a bit.
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