3 great products from Greenbuild 2015

Greenbuild International, the world's largest green building show, attracts tens of thousands of the world's leading builders, designers, home remodelers, planners, and architects. This year Greenbuild was in Washington DC and showcased green products from around the globe. The show room floor is so large that it would take you a couple of days to visit every booth.

Each year I try to find the best products at Greenbuild that can help transform your home into one that uses less energy and helps restore the environment rather than polluting it. This year I found three products that really stand out. One will help you manage your stormwater. The other two will help you get to a more reliable, energy efficient and clean energy supply.

Here's my three best products from this year's Greenbuild Expo:

Curb Energy

If your home is like most, it wastes more than 20% of the electricity you pay for. Curb Energy uncovers home energy trends, pinpoints power hogs, and gives you control over your home and your electric bill.

Curb gives your house the brain it deserves. It's the first affordable smart home energy monitor on the market, and it'll make your dumb appliances smart. By connecting sensors in your electrical breaker box, Curb can monitor every circuit in your home and give you information about how you can be more energy efficient.

The possibilities for Curb are endless. By connecting the unit to your electrical box and partnering it with a smart home hub like Samsung's SmartThings, you can be the master of your home energy and reduce energy waste.

With the Curb app, you can turn appliances on and off and see granular data on how much energy you are using and what you are spending. No more surprises on your energy bill.

Eco-raster - grass paver

Made in Germany from 100% recycled polyethylene plastic, Eco-raster gives you a wonderful alternative to paved driveways. In just a few hours you can transform an old asphalt or concrete driveway into a durable driveway made of grass or gravel. Rainwater can now permeate through the driveway and go back into the soil. Most driveways just turn rainwater into pollution by diverting into gutters and roads where they collect oil, sand, salt and chemicals. Eventually, all this polluted water ends up in our rivers and streams.

With Eco-raster the rain returns to the ground and is filtered by the soil while restoring natural aquifers. As a bonus, it is much more beautiful than a paved driveway.

Aquion Batteries

Aquion was by far the most innovative product on the Greenbuild Expo floor. It is the first non-toxic, safe, and affordable solution for storing solar energy in your home. Because it is made from salt-water it is also non-flammable and needs very little ventilation. The sodium ion battery solves many of the problems of lead-acid or lithium ion batteries. It is competitive on cost and lasts longer than other storage materials.

Aquion is so environmentally friendly that it is Cradle-to-Cradle certified.

This is a great solution for storing residential solar energy for use as backup power or to go completely off-grid. It's my favorite of the show.