ecologically: cause 40% of all energy flows and greenhouse gas emissions, 50% of all material flows, are the central factor for climate protection, energy, resource consumption.
economically: cause correspondingly high operating, manufacturing and dismantling costs, tie up funds and capital
socially: with a 90% share of time, they are a central place to live and stay, shaping health, quality of life and work
effective over generationswith correspondingly high long-term impact and efficiency potential.
Passive Houses Plus
with optimised material composition (e.g. “wood”) …
provide an answer to the challenge of mankind
Ecologically: Passive house technology starts at the root and reduces operating energy of the overall by 80 to 90% compared to the average building by means of a highly efficient building envelope and highly efficient ventilation & appliance equipment. Drastically reduced heat losses lead to drastically extended temperature response times as well as drastically reduced demand under winterly cold peak conditions so that passive houses are very robust, net- and user-friendly. They can easily overbridge energy supply variations, are net-friendly as well as robust against “dark lulls”. Mostly unknown and as a byproduct, they even can serve as a very cheap & efficient renewable heat storage reserve of a very huge collective size and capacity in the regeneratively dominated net supply structures of the future (“simply” by proactively inducing slight indoor temperature and corresponding energy demand variations at a very low cost!). Passive Houses Plus (or even -Premium) additionally include renewable energy in a highly efficient sustainable way properly accounting for “asynchronous energy production/demand-profiles”, summer/winter transition losses, as well as limited availabilty of biomass. They avoid the trap of traditional net-plus-energy buildings, where energy accounting is done in an unphysical manner by oversimplified subtraction of summer gains from winter losses and/or speculating on the abundance of scarce biomass for burning. Moreover renewable energy gains (e.g. PV) are rightfully related to the ecologically scarce buildings foot print area instead of living or usable space. This prohibits misoptimization and misconception of high per floor-area scores of PV-rich, footprint consuming single-family bungalows with respect to PV-scarce much more sustainable multi-family multistorey buildings. Optimised material composition reduces manufacturing energy and enables the storage of CO2 – e.g. preserved in “wood” – so that passive houses plus can supply a decisive, even “climate-positive” answer. As far as “grey energy” Often misunderstood is the fact that it is the heavy load bearing structure of the building (beton), where usually 80 to 90% of grey energy and upfront emissions are spent and where a turn-around is needed (slim framework construction, timber, wood). The contribution of light-weight insulation layers to “grey energy” demand during production however is so small that its usually earned back during the first months or years of its long life time, where optimized heat transfer properties of the material count. This has to be taken into account in the overall optimization process.
Economically: passive houses are conceived in such a way that the improved building envelope/ventilation technology saves so much energy that active “conventional” heating (and cooling) can be omitted or reduced to such an extent that an optimum is achieved economically. That this not only works in theory, but is also true in practice, is proven by constructed buildings (Passive House database), reports and statistical evaluations. According to this, a Passive House costs on average no more than a conventional house – and is superior in the medium/long-term economy – without its ecological-social advantages, its resilience against disturbances, dark periods, supply bottlenecks being priced in.
Socially:
passive house technology optimises temperatures of building surfaces, avoids mould, provides a pleasant radiant climate, fresh, pollen- and draught-free indoor air, high quality of stay and living, it provides for healthy indoor climate and well-being in winter and summer.
In total: highly efficient, highly effective sustainable building levels are achieved with passive house technology, realized and certified as “Passivhaus”, “Passivhaus-Plus” and “-Premium “ (full implementation in new buildings) “EnerPHIT”, “EnerPHIT-Plus and “EnerPHIT-Premium “ (slightly weakened implementation in old buildings
