Although I had no real intention of doing an immersion course in energy efficiency in new-home building yesterday, my day ended up being unintentionally but almost completely devoted to the topic.

I should've realized that the tone for my day was set from the time of my morning meeting with a VP from one of the public builders who is very involved in environmental issues from storm water management to new energy-efficiency standards. What was really cool is that I got a peak at one of the Department of Energy's proposed energy labels for homes. Basically it looked like a sticker that would show a homeowner how his or her home rated in terms of energy efficiency against a typical existing home or a new home.

The labeling push has come out of the proposed climate change bill by Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey. The bill, known as "The American Clean energy and Security Act of 2009," has passed the House and awaits Senate debate. At the heart of the bill is a requirement to improve energy efficiency in new buildings, both residential and commercial, by 30% by 2012 and 50% by 2014.

While home builders big and small are evaluating the benefits of this aggressive improvement in energy-efficiency standards against the costs of making it happen, the labeling program faces its own issues. Personally, I kind of like the idea of a labeling system. However, it's got to mean something more than a number. For it to work the way it should in theory, there has to be some sort of value attached to that energy-efficiency rating. And for that to happen, the industry is going to have to get buy in from the mortgage and appraisal industries. And quite frankly, I don't know when, or if, that can happen given that (1) mortgage lenders don't factor in the costs of operating a home into their evaluations of home buyers' ability to afford a house on a monthly payment basis and (2) many appraisers can't seem to see how superior construction products and construction make a home more valuable against foreclosures and short sales.

But for all my cynicism, I did get a glimpse of how that could be changing as I drove out to visit Pulte Homes' all-solar Villa Trieste community in the Summerlin master plan outside Las Vegas in the afternoon. In the car with me I had a rep from SunPower, the manufacturer of the solar tiles that Pulte was using in the community. He was telling me about how his company was designing courses to educate the real estate community, from Realtors to appraisers, on solar power. This type of activity is certainly progress, but it doesn't really represent a blanket solution that would really improve the standards of evaluating energy-efficiency technology on a large scale.

But back to Villa Trieste. ... I had toured the community last year, shortly after its initial unveiling. And I have to say, it's still pretty awesome a year later. It's incredible to me that Pulte can make solar power standard plus add in a whole bunch of energy-efficiency goodies such as tankless water heaters, blown-in insulation, low-e glass, and much more and have prices starting around $217,000.

Now, I realized that prices in the low to mid-$200,000s in Vegas wouldn't really be considered all that competitive. Best I can tell from all my driving around is that $100,000 is the new $200,000 in Vegas, which makes Villa Trieste a move-up product in a first-time buyer market. Consequently, the community isn't going great guns. I believe Pulte's sold around 28 homes since opening the community, so roughly two homes a month. Not bad, but not stellar. However, I still look at this community as a very successful community because it really challenges the way the industry needs to start thinking about community development. Now the question of whether Pulte can scale this type of development is up for debate. But I can tell you that there's a lot of effort being put into figuring out how to make it happen.

We shot a bunch of video while we toured the community, so stay tuned for a look at some of the technology at work in the community.