#beexinsight

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Press Release: BE-Ex announces new board member and vice-chair

The Building Energy Exchange, a non-profit dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in the built environment, is proud to announce the election of Robert F. Lurie of the New York Power Authority to their Board of Directors, and the appointment of sitting board member Donna De Costanzo of the Natural Resources Defense Council to the position of vice-chair.  

January 29, 2018

New York, NY – The Building Energy Exchange (BE-Ex), an independent non-profit, advances energy efficiency in the built environment through education, training, and exhibits at a stunning Manhattan resource center. Working closely with major City and State agencies, private sector real estate firms, and design and engineering leaders, BE-Ex develops critical resources and training for a sector that is central to New York City and State’s climate action plans. The BE-Ex Board of Directors reflects the diverse set of stakeholders that influence the performance of buildings in our city and region.   “The New York Power Authority has a long history of support for the Building Energy Exchange and its work helping New York State meet its clean energy targets,“ said Robert F. Lurie, executive vice president, chief financial officer, and chief strategy officer for New York Power Authority. “As a member of its board of directors, I look forward to providing direction and more hands-on collaboration in this important work.”   “I am thrilled to serve as BE-Ex's vice-chair,” said Donna De Costanzo, director, eastern region for the Climate & Clean Energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Building efficiency is a crucial element of New York’s fight against climate change, and BE-Ex plays an important role in that effort, engaging a wide range of stakeholders and providing critical resources and educational opportunities.”   “We are honored to work with these two industry leaders,” said Richard Yancey, BE-Ex’s executive director, “and the rest of our accomplished Board of Directors, as we expand our newly renovated energy efficiency center of excellence. With their guidance and support we are poised to significantly accelerate and scale our impact advancing the sustainability of our built environment and ensuring the building sector meets the most important challenge of our generation.”   Robert F. Lurie, newly elected to serve on the Building Energy Exchange's Board of Directors, is the New York Power Authority's (NYPA) executive vice president, chief financial officer, and chief strategy officer. He joined NYPA in 2012 as head of the newly formed strategic planning department, where he led the management team in creating their strategic plan. He also was responsible for managing project development, project finance, research & development, and evaluating new business opportunities and technologies.   Prior to NYPA, Lurie was vice president of North American business development for Ocean Power Technologies in New Jersey, and directed mergers and acquisitions for Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., in Pennsylvania. He served as the chief of strategic planning at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 2003-2007, leading the development of a 10-year, $20 billion strategic capital plan. Lurie replaces former New York Power Authority executive Jill Anderson, who recently relocated to California.    Donna De Costanzo will serve as Building Energy Exchange’s new vice-chair, and member of the Executive Committee. As director, eastern region for the Climate & Clean Energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Donna oversees NRDC’s work on climate and clean energy across the Eastern states and advocates for the implementation of policies that increase the deployment of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean transportation options. Prior to NRDC, Donna was counsel to the New York City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, where she advised the Speaker and council members on environmental policy and crafted legislation on various issues, including sustainability planning, climate change, clean energy, air and water quality, endangered species, and green procurement. Before joining the New York City Council, Donna was an assistant regional counsel in the Waste & Toxic Substances branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region II. She holds a BS in biological sciences from Cornell University and a JD from New York University School of Law.  

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About BE-Ex

The Building Energy Exchange is an independent nonprofit created to educate the building industry about innovative energy efficient technologies and strategies, increasing the demand for efficiency projects and reducing friction for decision makers and practitioners. The Building Energy Exchange convenes networking and knowledge sharing events, professional training, and energy efficiency exhibits, in their downtown resource center. Additionally, BE-Ex manages targeted demonstration projects and maintains a website of extensive virtual resources at www.be-exchange.org.

Contact Richard Yancey, Executive Director, Building Energy Exchange 212-349-3900 [email protected]

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Getting NYC to 80x50: Buildings

What’s Our Problem?

John Gilbert of Rudin Management and Thomas Sahagian, formerly of Enterprise Community Partners, went to the mat last week at the New York League of Conservation Voters’ 80x50 forum on buildings.

BE-Ex’s very own Executive Director, Richard Yancey, moderated a fascinating panel exploring ways we can radically improve efficiency in NYC’s building stock quickly enough to meet New York City’s goal of 80% reduction by 2050. One of the most interesting moments of the event was the surfacing of an ongoing debate in the building industry: Do we have a technology problem or is it something else (think education, implementation, priorities)?

This debate is not new; technocrats and non-technocrats have been going at it for years. In this author’s opinion we will likely need both technology and behavioral change to solve our problems. However, this conversation remains interesting because with limited monetary and human resources, it is clear that the side that makes a more compelling case will win a larger share of those resources.

Sahagian came down strongly that technology cannot solve all our problems. There are age-old, easy and cheap ways to save energy in buildings, such as air sealing and weather-stripping, that we have not managed to implement at a large-scale. We need to figure out how to get the most basic things done before imagining that technology will save the day.

Gilbert, on the other hand, explained that Rudin Management has achieved 20% energy savings in their base buildings by developing new hardware and software. Specifically, Rudin has developed a technology that optimizes energy use based on occupancy, in real time. Furthermore, this software and the results it produced has allowed them to make a compelling case to their tenants to do the same. It’s hard to argue with results!

As the debate continued, John Lee, from the NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, stepped back and reminded us that the core problem is that the world economy is built on fossil fuels. We are in a crucial moment in history. We are trying to change the commodity that runs our economy without knowing exactly what will come next. And that is bigger than the debate between technology and behavior!  

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An Intern’s Experience of Daylight Hour 2017

Name: Rachel Vullo Degree: Political Science and Cultural Studies Position: Resource Development Intern

My first week at the Building Energy Exchange began with a whirlwind of outreach, social media postings, emailing, and promotion for the organization's annual social media campaign, Daylight Hour. My organizational skills went into overdrive compiling lists of hundreds of participants and watching as they promoted the campaign over social media.

The Daylight Hour campaign has taught me valuable lessons on successfully communicating with a wide range of businesses from huge corporations to small offices with a handful of employees such as BE-Ex. As more of the responsibility for handling social media platforms was allotted to me, I have learned the importance of internet outreach and engagement. The number of offices who signed up based on a tweet they saw or a post on LinkedIn was astounding.

Now that Daylight Hour is over and we have announced our award winners, it’s great to see the excitement from our participants. Many of the offices have decided to extend Daylight Hour over the summer and continuously promote energy savings. As an intern, I value seeing the lasting impact that the campaign has had.

Daylight Hour 2017 encompassed over 100 million square feet of office space (20 million square feet more than last year) and reached more than 10 million people via social media. Not only did this year increase awareness of the campaign but we were honored by the positive feedback we received from participants. In just one hour, we saved enough energy to power 9,400 homes for a day. I am honored to have been a part of making such an impact.

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Case Study: Daylight Hour Adds Up For Easy Energy Savings Boost At Great Forest

Summary: Great Forest’s participation in Daylight Hour 2016 triggered not only energy savings but also prompted increased engagement among employees stemming from the thrill of coming up tops promoting the fun competition. Following our success, we turned Daylight Hour into Daylight Fridays, expanding our energy saving efforts year-round, and beyond lighting.

What we did: Great Forest’s NYC office occupies  a  110-year-old brownstone in historic Central Harlem. Daylighting is plentiful due to skylights and east facing windows, and minimal shading from neighboring properties. As such, our office lights are usually off for a good amount of time each day, even before we began taking part in Daylight Hour.

So to really make a difference in energy savings, we decided that we would not just turn off the lights, but also take into account cooling to make an impact on the aggregated total. The Great Forest energy team then went floor to floor to make adjustments in our 2-pronged effort to curtail energy use. While the upper floors received plenty of daylight, they also predictably gain the most heat during summer afternoons, particularly in storage areas (where the thermostat is located), which happen to be remote from the work areas.  This along with our west-facing windows, which collect the most late afternoon heat, were forcing over-cooling of the rest of the building, since the cooling system was making adjustments for this area. So we decided to change the set-point and operate windows more frequently, and to invest in room darkening shades for the upper floors. Ultimately, the shades are what is probably making the most impact on the property.

Results: Results from both our managed cooling efforts and limited lighting during last year’s Daylight Hour (June 17, 2016) and the days following were impressive: we saved more than 25% (500kWh) year over year (June 2015 compared to June 2016) in total kWh usage, and over 56% (1.3 kW) in peak kW demand billed by Con Edison. We have to note that luck was also on our side as  some of the high heat days of summer 2016 fell on weekends.

Conclusion: Lights and automated heating/cooling systems are so much a part of our daily working life that in the majority of offices across the country, workers do not even think about it. The lights and heat/air are on when we get to the office, and they often remain on even if there is bright daylight streaming through our windows, or if it gets too cold.

“We need to get get more people to pay attention to their immediate surroundings,” says Sheila Sweeney, Great Forest’s Director of Energy Services.

“Part of what we do at Great Forest is to work closely with C-suite levels at property management firms around the US to forge change in the mindsets of their employees and the larger community. Now we’ve done it within our own offices with Daylight Hour. We made sure that everyone was able to join in the energy saving conversation. We made it fun and memorable, and we simply built on that success by making awareness a year-round energy saving policy.”

“If you work in a large office where controls are not within your reach, talk to your sustainability officer or facility manager.  The solution could be as simple as turning a dial elsewhere in the building.”

This article originally appeared on the Great Forest Sustainability 101 Blog

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Shedding Some Light on Daylighting

This graphic illustrates our Daylight Hour light measurement study. Each photo was taken at a different location on the hour around the office. The weather at the time is represented by the cloud or sun icons and the corresponding light intensity is found within. The time of each photo is represented by the circular clock icon to the left. As part of FXFOWLE's commitment to protecting and repairing the environment, sustainable practices aren't exclusive to our design work. We are committed to making our workplace a model of sustainability as well. Our firm has been carbon neutral since 2008 and we are invested in finding new ways to be good stewards of the planet.

For that reason, we are participating in Building Energy Exchange's annual Daylight Hour. Daylight Hour is a social media campaign to encourage using natural daylight in offices in place of electric lighting for just one hour. For the second year in a row, FXFOWLE has committed to extending the Building Energy Exchange's challenge by turning the lights off between noon and 2 p.m. every day throughout the summer.

In addition to this challenge, we conducted a small research study to calculate the quality of daylight on all three floors of our New York City office within a typical work day (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). We measured different locations in the office on the hour with a light meter, measuring foot candles in each area. A foot candle is the measurement of light intensity, and LEED requires office spaces to have a minimum of 10 foot candles of daylight to be sufficient. The ideal range is 10 to 500 foot candles.

We discovered that our office receives an abundance of natural light, only absolutely requiring electric lighting in select areas closer to the interior of the office. The eleventh floor receives the highest quality and widest range (25 – 116 fc on the day of the study) of daylight due to its north-south orientation, large windows, and skylights. Knowing this, FXFOWLE will continue this research throughout the summer and consider having lights off more regularly to continue saving energy in our workplace.

This article originally appeared in the FXFOWLE Culture Blog.

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North America’s Quiet Passive House Revolution - Part 3

Six strategies to accelerate market transformation for passive buildings 

By: Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze, Pembina Institute 

This is the final article in a three-part series based on the findings of the report Accelerating Market Transformation for High-Performance Building Enclosures. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Subnational governments have a key role to play in accelerating the market transformation for high performance buildings. In Part 2, we discussed some policies adopted in Western Canada to encourage Passive House developments today and to shift the building code to a comparable level of performance by 2030. In Part 1 of this series, we showed how the demand for Passive House buildings and training has increased as a result of these policies and the leadership of practitioners.

So if this transformation is underway, why do we need policy-makers to get involved?  We are on a timeline, and must pick up the pace. Each building allowed to be built to current standards is a 50+ year liability in a world that needs to be almost fully decarbonized within the next 30 years. To prepare the industry to deliver Passive House levels of performance consistently in less than 15 years is a challenge that requires vision and planning.

What would a comprehensive policy package look like? Based on our review of public policies in Europe and North America, local, state, and provincial governments efforts should focus on six strategies (Table 1):

Get more passive buildings on the ground, today. It takes time for supply chains to stock the high performance components needed, and for professionals and trades to develop expertise to design and construct passive buildings. The sooner we start, the better: the best market transformation strategy is a shovel in the ground. To this end, subnational governments should design public procurement policies, rezoning policies, and incentives programs to target passive house levels of performance, rather than allocating points for ‘marginally above code’ performance. Prioritize projects that are affordable and replicable (particularly for the MURB sector) and those with high visibility to the public (e.g. city halls, libraries, schools, hotels). To maximize the learnings from these leading projects, provide incentives for developers and owners to share data on the project economics and design strategies and to collaborate with research institutions to monitor performance post-occupancy.

Free up additional capital to cover incremental costs. Provinces and states can use government bonds to provide low-cost capital for loans and incentives for high performance new construction and refurbishments. If well designed, these public investments can be cost-neutral (or even cost-positive) for governments, because the economic activity they generate also lead to an increase public revenues through taxation. For example, Germany’s KfW development Bank returns to the public coffers four to five times the amount of public funds originally invested by the government. Alongside this public financing, private financing can be encouraged by mechanisms such as Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), which decrease the risk of default by tying the loan to the property title.

Ensure markets and decision-makers have access to energy information. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it: comparable and validated energy data must be made available to the market for the benefits of energy efficiency to be reflected in prices and assessed value. States and local governments should require benchmarking and reporting based on square footage, starting with larger buildings first and including smaller ones over time. They should also require home energy labelling for new construction and at point of sale/renovation. These will provide the feedback mechanisms needed to guide code evolution and facilitate valuation of energy efficiency and market positioning of high performance buildings.

Prepare the ground for regulation. States and provinces should send clear regulatory signals to the market; defining mid- and long-term targets for energy code performance allows time for supply chains and training providers to prepare for these changes. It also provides an incentive for builders to skip the middle steps and learn directly how to build high-performance buildings, giving them an edge on the market and minimizing the investment needed to change practices at each code change. Code developers should use benchmarking data to monitor impact of energy code changes as we progress towards 2030 targets, and adjust accordingly through codes updates or bulletins.

Create information sharing hubs for training, research, and outreach. High performance buildings are not rocket science, but there is a learning curve. Having set targets and a vision for where the industry is going, we must ensure that professionals, trades, contractors, owners, managers, building officials, and assessors are prepared for the next generation of energy codes and high performance buildings. Governments support the institutions and agencies that provide some of this education, research, and outreach so they can develop new curriculum and prepare to meet an increased demand as codes come into force. In addition, a central coordinating body should be created (or mobilized) to facilitate access to existing training resources, assess the readiness of the industry, and work with training providers and manufacturers to fill capacity and supply-chain gaps.

Internalize the full cost of energy. Most economists agree that setting a price on undesired externalities and letting the market innovate to meet the new conditions is more cost effective than regulatory approaches. California, Québec, and Ontario’s cap and trade system and B.C.’s carbon tax provide successful examples of how subnational governments can set a price on carbon pollution. Unfortunately, current levels of carbon pricing are still much too low to drive construction and renovation decisions towards deep energy efficiency and decarbonization. Various businesses in the building sector have called for increased carbon pricing, for example in CERES’ Building and Real Estate Climate Declaration in the U.S. and the Call for Action on Climate and Energy in the Building Sector in Canada. Reallocation of energy subsidies and utility rate design are other tools state and provincial governments can use to correct the failure of our energy markets to minimize waste and pollution.

A market transformation has started, and uptake is accelerating. Hopefully, in a decade or so, we will be comfortably seated in our new (or renovated!) Passive House office or home, and look back in awe upon the days when we accepted buildings to be drafty, stuffy, and wasteful. Unfortunately, this future is uncertain: nothing guarantees that this budding market transformation will ripen to create a new normal. The barriers are significant: low energy prices, the absence of a meaningful price on carbon pollution, split incentives, and a long list of behavioral biases that often leads us to ignoring cost-effective efficiency projects (inattention, imperfect information, hyperbolic discounting, etc.). The creative minds of Passive House designers, builders, and contractors, and of high performance component manufacturers can solve any technical issues we will face along the way. But if we want this technology to go mainstream, and fast, we need government to address these market failures.

Subnational governments have been successful at implementing progressive building policies. Their leadership will continue to be pivotal in the evolution of low/no-carbon building policies given the current White House administration’s lack of interest.

Table 1: Strategic actions for market transformation

This is a guest blog written by Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze, a senior advisor with the Buildings and Urban Solutions Program at the Pembina Institute, a non-profit think-tank that advocates for strong, effective policies to support Canada’s clean energy transition. He is the lead author of the report Accelerating Market Transformation for High-Performance Building Enclosures.

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North America’s Quiet Passive House Revolution - Part 2

Energy Efficient Buildings: Subnational Governments Lead the Way

By Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze, Pembina Institute

This is the second article in a three-part series based on the findings of the report Accelerating Market Transformation for High-Performance Building Enclosures. Read Part 1. Keep your eyes peeled for part 3.

Both north and south of the border, the new U.S. administration’s position on energy efficiency was already a source of concern for clean economy advocates prior to their announced intention to withdraw from the Paris Accord. Canada is still recovering from a decade of inaction and regression on environmental issues under the previous government. The current Canadian government is making progress on the climate file — setting a minimum price on carbon and charting a pathway to net-zero ready building codes by 2030 — but much remains to be done.

Fortunately, in both countries, subnational governments have significant jurisdiction over the building sector. Some states, provinces, and local authorities have shown leadership in policy design, for example: New York City’s policy requiring new public buildings to be 50% more efficient than the average for each sector, their intention to increase code stringency significantly over the next few cycles, and many other incremental measures like their thick wall exclusion for high performing buildings;the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency’s competitive funding for new affordable housing granting points for Passive House certification, or Baltimore County’s High Performance Home tax credit. California’s vision to make new residential and commercial buildings zero-net energy (ZNE) by 2020 and 2030, respectively, has lead it to draft some of North America’s most ambitious stretch codes (CALGreen) and building codes (Title 24).  

Readers in the U.S. are probably familiar with these examples. But some might be less familiar with the Canadian scene, so we’ve dedicated this article to sharing progressive policies recently put into place on Canada’s West Coast.

VANCOUVER: EPICENTER OF THE PASSIVE HOUSE BOOM?

The city of Vancouver is a hot spot of Passive House activity, with at least 12 multi-unit mid-rise residential projects currently in development. When completed, these will account for a quarter of all of the Passive House square footage we could inventory (i.e. including all certified projects and our non-exhaustive [and geographically biased] survey of projects aiming for certification). This was supported by city hall, which attempted to remove barriers to Passive House by providing certified projects with floor space exclusions for thick walls, height and set-back relaxations, and an alternate compliance path to meet rezoning requirements for increased density. The city also trained permit reviewers and inspection staff in Passive House to reduce possible barriers to innovative designs and streamline processing.

But this was only the beginning. The City of Vancouver’s Zero Emissions Building Plan charts a course for a 90% reduction in emissions from new buildings by 2025, and achieving zero emissions for all new buildings by 2030. The plan sets a course for all new multi-family buildings six storeys and under to be built to near Passive House levels of performance by 2020 (i.e. requiring a thermal energy demand intensity no greater than 15 kWh/m2/year; see Figure 1). An intermediary target of 25 kWh/m2/year was adopted (alongside a prescriptive compliance option) in the latest revision to the building bylaw coming into force in March 2018. As a result, emissions from low-rise multi-family buildings will be reduced by 40% to 55%. Homeowners and renters will see energy savings of $2.8 million (CAD) over the next five years, and the net cost of ownership (including mortgage and energy payments) for new owners will be realized from day one.

The city has also committed to build all new city-owned projects to the Passive House standard (unless deemed unviable). A fire hall and a social housing project are new Passive House projects underway.

Figure 1: Targets for low-rise MURBs in the City of Vancouver’s Zero Emissions Buildings Plan Note: GHGI: Annual greenhouse gas emissions intensity, in kg-CO2e /m2. TEDI: Annual thermal energy demand intensity, in kWh/m2. Bylaw requirements apply to all low-rise MURBs, rezoning requirements apply to projects seeking to increase density beyond current zoning requirements for their site. Historically, more than half of new floor area built in Vancouver requires rezoning. See p.17-18 of the plan for targets for high-rise MURBs, and offices. 

BRITISH COLUMBIA: TAKING STRETCH CODES TO THE NEXT LEVEL

In the meantime, the Province of British Columbia is also moving forward with plans for more efficient buildings. Its latest provincial climate plan, while generally lacking in ambition and insufficient to meet the province's legislated carbon reduction targets, did contain some promising building policies. This includes a commitment for all new construction to be net-zero ready by 2032, the establishment of incentives for high-performance new construction, as well as increased support for training and capacity building.

The plan also confirmed political support for North America’s first multi-tiered energy stretch code, dubbed the Energy Step Code. This opt-in, performance-based standard will provide a unified framework for local government to incent or require energy performance beyond code minimum. It includes four performance steps, the first step requiring energy modelling and air-tightness testing (but no additional performance gains beyond base code), and the last step requiring performance levels matching the international Passive House standard (i.e. a thermal energy demand intensity no greater 15 kWh/m2/year)(Figure 2).

The Energy Step Code thus provides a four-step roadmap between current building practice and the net-zero ready goal. It also confirms a consensus towards an “envelope-first” approach, and sets Passive House levels of performance as the desired end goal. The Energy Step Code will allow leading municipalities to devise policies and incentives to move both the bulk and the leading edge of the market transformation bell curve, to prepare the industry not just for the next code cycle but also for the more profound changes needed for high performance construction to become the norm by 2030.

Figure 2: British Columbia energy step code tiers for Part 3 buildings (i.e. commercial, mid high rise residential)

As we will discuss in the last article in this series, the success of this transition requires a shared vision of the end goal, and government support for the leaders who are building to Passive House performance today.  

Vision and support from the public sector will be needed for this Passive House (r)evolution to bloom into a new normal. A friendly competition between subnational governments on both sides of the border could be an invigorating stimulus.

We’ve dropped our cards. New York, show us what you’ve got.

This is a guest blog written by Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze, a senior advisor with the Buildings and Urban Solutions Program at the Pembina Institute, a non-profit think-tank that advocates for strong, effective policies to support Canada’s clean energy transition. He is a the lead author of the report Accelerating Market Transformation for High-Performance Building Enclosures.

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North America’s Quiet Passive House Revolution - Part 1

Growth in Passive House Buildings: A Sign of Market Transformation Underway

By: Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze, Pembina Institute 

This is the first article in a three-part series based on the findings of the report Accelerating Market Transformation for High-Performance Building Enclosures. Look for Part 2 next week.

There’s a Passive House revolution underway. It might not be obvious to all of us working in the trenches to get one more ultra energy-efficient project built, one more sustainable building policy in place. But taking a step back, we can see evidence of a market in rapid transition, showing some of the tell-tale signs of a technology leaping from niche towards mainstream.

Market transformation moments are obvious in hindsight, but nebulous as they unfold. In this series of three blogs, we’ll highlight three indicators that such a transformation is underway: the growing number and size of projects, the growing number of trained professionals and trades people, and the increased inclusion of Passive House principles in subnational construction policies. We’ll close the series with recommendations to accelerate this market transformation.  

PROJECTS: MORE & BIGGER

There has been a steady growth in the number of Passive House projects in North America in the last eight years (Figure 1). More importantly, projects are growing in size and sophistication (see here, here, and here). Alongside the nimble early adopters working on custom projects, we now see larger construction companies investing time and resources to develop Passive House solutions that can compete in the multi-unit residential market.

Once the projects currently on the books are completed, the number of Passive House units in North America will have grown six-fold, from 500 in 2015 to over 3,000 units. Even if some of these projects do not succeed in meeting all certification criteria, this is a significant growth in demand for high performance product and services.

(a)

(b)

(c )

Figure 1: Growth in certified Passive Houses in North America (PHI and PHIUS) since 2009 by (a) number of projects (b) square footage and (c) number of residential dwellings. Note: “In development” data is a non-exhaustive scan of projects under development attempting to certify. It includes projects that PHIUS expects will be completed in 2017, projects in the Moodyville redevelopment in North Vancouver, and a non-exhaustive list of projects from one of the four PHI certifiers in Canada.

This growth in number of units is mostly due to the rapid emergence of larger Passive House multi-unit residential buildings. If they deliver on the quality we expect from certified Passive House projects, these buildings will provide many more homeowners or renters with the  experience of superior thermal and acoustic comfort. Demand for new products and technologies is not linear: fueled by word of mouth and a desire to “keep up with the Joneses,” direct experience and bragging rights are a powerful social marketing force.

These larger projects will also provide a large number of “mainstream” trades people, contractors, and professionals with experience on Passive House construction sites — a key factor in reducing construction costs.

TRAINING: BROADENING THE TENT

The number of professionals and trades workers receiving formal training in Passive House construction techniques is another indicator of market transformation. Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS), Passive House Canada, and the Passive House Institute (through Passive House Academy) provide training and certification programs for professionals and trades and support networks for practitioners. Demand and capacity for training has steadily increased in the last five years. As a result, there are currently over 1,600 professionals and trades workers trained in Passive House construction in North America, with hundreds of new certifications expected in the next year (Figure 2).

What may matter even more than the total figure, is who is getting training. Talking with Passive House trainers in Canada, we hear that classrooms are increasingly filled with staff from large construction companies, major consultancies, and local governments. Education institutions also are integrating high performance construction principles in their curriculum, providing a base for the next generation. This broadening of the expertise base from entrepreneurial early adopters to established institutional players is a key indicator of market transformation.

The community of practitioners is also becoming more widely distributed across North America. The East Coast of the U.S. has a large body of practice, along with California and the Pacific Northwest. In Canada, most practitioners are on the West Coast, followed by Ontario and Québec. However, the spread of Passive House practice goes beyond these hot spots, as there are now certified Passive House trades workers or professionals registered in most states and provinces (Figure 3). There are also over 25 chapters of Passive House Alliance U.S. and the North American Passive House Network providing facilitated and peer-led support to their more than 1,500 members.  

Figure 2: Growth in certified Passive House designers and trades in U.S. and Canada since 2009. Data source: Passive House Canada and PHIUS. Note: the number of certified designers is not tracked by PHIUS — these figures were estimated from records of course registration and the historical pass rate on the PHIUS exam.

https://fusiontables.google.com/DataSource?docid=1AKRo8GQLjQrHJrnmlUasZvl0QzeZVeSFNy6gLlSw#map:id=3 Figure 3: Map of certified Passive House practitioners in the U.S. and Canada (as of August 2016)

As with any systems change, movement can seem painfully incremental. It’s important to take a step back once in a while to celebrate progress. The growing number of Passive House projects built for or by large institutional players and the increasing number – and diversity – of trained professionals are good indicators of inflection points in market transformation. As we will discuss in Part 2, integration of Passive House principles and standards in public policy are other key indicators, and accelerators, of this mainstreaming.

This is a guest blog written by Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze, a senior advisor with the Buildings and Urban Solutions Program at the Pembina Institute, a non-profit think-tank that advocates for strong, effective policies to support Canada’s clean energy transition. He is the lead author of the report Accelerating Market Transformation for High-Performance Building Enclosures.