Yes, I know that there are a lot of variables to consider. I am having trouble putting them together to form a conclusion. Ideally good sun exposure for passive gain and a PV system.

Southern Oregon/Northern California or otherwise known as the State of Jefferson:

1. Four distinct seasons, but relatively mild climate.
2. Relatively good amount of sun for passive solar heating and PV power.
3. Available water resources for onsite micro hydro power (which makes Net Zero a trivial pursuit and enables environmentally friendly, low complexity/cost electric boilers to be the preferred heat source).
4. Land is relatively cheap so you can have way more land and spend more on the building structure and still pay way less overall than a code minimum building in most places.

However, anything west of the Mississippi is well known to be significantly more livable in general, so you really can’t go wrong given your post title!

NREL maps insolation by kwh/meter. http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html I'd add thermal mass to your list if you choose the desert SW. With mass buffering heat and passive solar to handle cold, you'd need little PV to get to zero. In fact, you may decide, as I did in Pa where fuel (firewood) falls from the sky, that the last 10-20 percent isn't worth the expense.

Wow, the State of Jefferson movement seems to still be active. It is going to be a major challenge to move to Oregon from N. Indiana. Our motivation is to move to a single story house closer to our children in Seattle and Louisville, Co. The challenge of finding a suitable building site (5-7 acres). Completing a house plan and building is daunting. We have not been able to find a realtor listing for a house that is near or at netzero.

I would say the first priority would be to be near a good builder experienced with and enthusiastic about net-zero/passive house/etc. And then the second priority would be near the rail lines between Denver and Oakland or Oakland and Seattle so you can travel to see both children without undermining your newly lowered carbon footprint. (Full disclosure: I'm a hypocrite, planning to fly coast to coast tomorrow for business, making the lame excuse that my professional activity is working towards energy efficiency and this trip is part of that work.)

Good point. And don't sweat the jet; Al Gore has his own...

All houses built in California starting in 2020 will have to be Net Zero Energy, per CA Tile 24.

House designers/builders who can't figure out how to do that cost effectively will be out of business by 2021.

'nuff sed

Can a PHIUS certified house be built for less than $200/sqft ? Most PHIUS houses that disclosed the cost to build were at or over $250sq/ft. As a retired individual desiring to build an energy efficient house, cost over run would be traumatic. For that matter, what is the estimated average cost of a Net Zero House. It seems that these houses are beyond the financial means of the average potential house buyer.

Steve Demetrick recently completed a certified Passive House in Rhode Island for $185/SF. So yes, it can be done even in the cold northeast. If you don't need the plaque, you can save on consultant costs and fees. In reality, the answer hinges on the details you want and on your list of "must haves". I've build "net zero" houses, with double walls, triple glazed windows and Passive House ACH levels, as low as $135/SF, but that house did not have the level of upgrades desired by many retirees who are looking to build new custom homes.

Resale home prices in LA are about $500/SF so the move-up market will be undeterred as long as net zero is seen as moving up.
More problematic is CA's goal of net zero for 50 percent of existing homes. Particularly when you get down to rents prescribed by Section 8, there is little or no margin for retrofit, particularly in multifamily where roof space is inadequate for leased pv. Minority nghbrhds will be tough as well if solar lessors redline, which in my mind is quite likely the case. Affordable housing has some play if capital costs are offset by energy savings. The $64 question is how much for how long. A net-zero CA will be a financial chimera if the choice is jacking up power bills for green customers or letting the other half freeze in the dark.

Yeah, it's going to be a lot tougher to get to Net Zero for 50% of CA's existing stock, even if PV panels double in efficiency by the time the price for small scale retrofits drop below a buck-a-watt.

The CA legislature isn't beyond making the PV third partys "pay to play" to get low income & minorities into affordable community solar, but they may eventually go there. Even though the lease option has been the drive of PV expansion in CA in recent years, I'm skeptical that it will continue to be the main factor by 2020. The LCOE of rooftop PV will likely be less than grid-retail by then even without federal subsidy, and financing low-income situations with an on-bill PACE approach may take over. We'll see, but I doubt they're gonna let granny freeze in the dark.

PACE if you are unfamiliar is a loan for home improvement repaid through higher property taxes -- not the most popular subject with landlords, and not possible without HUD adopting energy offset math for housing subsidies. Dana and I agree that CA won't let people freeze in the dark. He perhaps will be less thrilled with my caution that "net zero" may not equal "cost free forever."

That said I'm happy to have CA leading the way. You may recall the state did a terrific job showing us how not to deregulate the power market. Besides which they can drive economies of scale for batteries.

"Net Zero" has never meant "cost free" (ever, let alone "forever"), not even in CA.

In California dialect "Net Zero" will soon just mean "code compliant on energy use".

California does have the advantage that lots of the population is in mild climates. If Bob can build a net zero house in NH at $135/sq foot, think what he could do in a mild climate!

I vote for Northern California. It's one of my favorite places in the world, nature-wise, and there are fewer places where you'll be surrounded by like-minded individuals, if that is important to you.

I also love No Cal, and am completing a house on the Humboldt coast. Temps are mild and if you build an efficient home, your energy usage can be very minimal. However summers on the east side of that Coastal Mountain range can be brutal. I remember working on my house last summer and the temps got up to 68 in the afternoon. When we left to drive back home, heading east, temps in Redding were 106. Stark contrast.

So some of the summer temps to the east of the coastal range in NoCal and South Oregon can get quite hot!

And if this area separates to become the state of Jefferson, I presume new Calif Title 24 rules might not apply? I don't get the feeling that many in this area care much for energy efficiency. It is rural, and not particularly liberal.