One technology I have my eyes on is developed by Isomax.
They build homes that require basically no heating or cooling at all, regardless of where the house it. How do they do it?
They use a series of air and water tubes and ducts to pass heat and cold around. They have tubes in the roof and walls that pass either into the earth outside the house or into the earth beneath the house. The area outside the house cools the tubes and the area beneath the house heats the house. The same happens with the air ducts.
The area beneath the house becomes a heat storage area as hot water from the roof and walls during the summer passes under the house and leaves the heat. Then during the winter that very same heat is still there but only now it is taken out of the earth and put back into the house.
The house takes two or three years to really get going because you need one or two summers to get the ground under the house warmed up but after that you can expect a house that stays the same constant temperature throughout the whole year.
It is a very interesting technology.