One of the UK's largest building firms, Barratt Developments, yesterday unveiled a new green concept home which it claims represents the first zero-carbon house built by a volume house builder.

The company said the three bedroom family home, which was officially opened by housing minister Caroline Flint at the Building Research Establishment Innovation Partk in Watford, will emit zero carbon on average over the course of a year and meet the highest level six of the Government's Code for Sustainable Homes.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Dan Bridgett, head of external affairs at Barratt Developments, said that the company would now begin assessing the performance of the prototype home and is planning to use it as a basis for the design of three further green homes, which it hopes to have commercially available by around 2011.

The prototype home features a raft of green features, including advanced insulation, an air source heat pump, solar hot water and photovoltaic roof panels, automatic window shutters to keep the building cool in the summer and a rain harvesting system to provide water to flush the toilets.

Bridgett would not disclose the cost of the new development, however he insisted the company was committed to delivering green homes that could meet the government's zero carbon goals while still proving affordable to customers.

"Like any prototype building the cost is higher than a standard unit," he said. "But we want to mass produce these types of green homes and we are working with our supply chain to build up the economies of scale for these technologies that are required to bring costs down."

John Alker of the UK Green Building Council welcomed the development, hailing it as evidence of many within the building sector's commitment to meeting the government's target of ensuring all new homes are zero carbon by 2016. "It is a fantastic achievement for a volume builder to have developed a prototype eight years early," he said, adding that while there was still a price premium on such homes the scale of firms such as Barratt should allow the industry to begin to lower the cost of green homes.

He added that such homes are also likely to prove increasingly attractive to customers under growing financial pressure from rising energy bills. "When you look at the full lifecycle costs of these homes they are a really attractive proposition," he said. "Not only do they have really low bills, you can even make money from them by selling energy generated onsite back to the grid."