As this month rolls along and I continue to research information for the Journal, I find more and more approaches design and build teams take to reach zero-energy, or energy neutral, with their buildings. One example of this type of construction I came across this morning is the first home on the South or West Coast to meet Passive House energy requirements. This in and of itself is a great accomplishment as Passive House requires drastic energy reductions in new construction without the use of many active systems.

The home is located in Lafayette, Louisiana, and satisfies Passive House design criteria of a 90% reduction in energy usage over traditional homes built to current codes. In addition to this, a building integrated photovoltaic solar laminate system is used to cover the remaining ten percent of energy required to bring the home to zero-energy status. The Passive House standard is gaining steam here in the US after proving itself in Europe for many years. It is one of the most stringent building standards available today, and I hope more people take notice of it to demand better building codes.

We all want to be energy-neutral somehow, and with this standard I feel that we can reach it without too much extra cost or effort. Upon reading the Passive House US website it does mention that preliminary data shows about a 10% increase in cost, which varies building to building. Of course, it's all up to whoever is behind the construction, whether that is a homeowner, building owner, or public agency. Also, we have a large amount of existing building stock that is not the focus of this standard. It has been pointed out that it is extremely hard to achieve these drastic energy reductions in existing buildings and that it can get extremely expensive and cost-preventive.

In the end the Passive House movement bring to the table some extraordinary performance results that can help guide us to become energy neutral, with the help of some active measures like solar panels. However, this might not work for all of our needs as experts have pointed to the diversity of climate within the US and difficulty in stretching the system to existing building stock.

Have you worked with the Passive House system? What were some of the benefits of working with it? Drawbacks? I hope to converse with some of you on this and hear your thoughts on the different approaches to net-zero construction!