The House of Energy is a building located in Kaufbeuren, Germany and is the first to receive the Passive House Premium certification is known to be one of the world’s most sustainable buildings. The annual heating demand of this building is only 8kWh/sq. meter and is provided by a 250 sq. meters photovoltaic system installed on its roof.
The new Passive House Premium building class has been introduced and launched earlier in 2015 along with the Passive House Plus class. These classes have been developed while keeping in mind the transition of the building energy sources from fossil sources to renewable energy.
To achieve the Passive House Plus accreditation, a building must not consume more than 45kWh/sq. m of renewable primary energy annually and must generate at least 60kWh/sq. m of renewable energy annually. The Passive House Premium parameters are stricter with the consumption dropping to 30 kWh/sq. m and the generation rising to 120kWh/sq. m.
The House of Energy falls a bit short of the energy generation requirements at 103kWh/sq. m per year, however, has still been awarded the Premium accreditation owing to the fact that its energy consumption is two-third of that required (21kWh/sq. m) and compensates for the lower energy generation. It is noteworthy that to achieve and maintain the Premium accreditation, the 900 sq. meters building employs the use of a number of technologies – none of them being out of the ordinary today.
Energy efficiency is achieved by making use of triple-glazed windows along with an excellent level of thermal protection, a high level of building enveloped air-tightness and ventilation system with heat recovery. The team installed different ventilation systems for comparison sake initially actually. A ground-source heat pump provides the additional heating along with hot water. The surplus energy generated from the photovoltaic system is fed back into the grid.
The House of Energy was completed last year and the awarded certification shall be presented to the house owners over the International Passive House Days of Nov. 14th and 15th when the building will also be opened for visits by public.