Cork Airport has reported it has achieved annual savings of over half a million Euro following a cut of 35% in energy costs over the last 5 years.

The aim of the passive house concept is to construct a house that comes as close as possible to heating and cooling itself in a passive manner, thus removing the need for a conventional heating/cooling system.

A passive house should anly require a small back-up heat source which may be required in extremely cold weather. This can result in a massive energy saving considering that up to 70% of a typical home’s energy cost will be spent on heating the space within the home.

The aim of Passive Housing is to minimise energy loss while maximising the amount of energy used from natural and renewable sources. The key element is achieving this is the design ofthe passive houseto combine the principles of passive solar building with a well insulated and air tight building perimiter.

Heating for cold days is provided by raising the temperature of the ventilation air using an efficient heat recovery ventilation system, through which the warm moist air exiting the house will pre-heat the incoming cold fresh air.

The concept of the Passive House originated in Germany in the early 1990s. and aims to provide comfortable living conditions while ensuring greatly reduced energy consumption. The ultimate Passive House design seeks to achieve ‘zero carbon’ output.

Based on current oil prices and on a 1100 square foot house, a Passive House will have an annual heating bill of between €100 and €200 which is a saving of almost 80% versus what you would expect to pay for heating a typical newly built home.

Enormous energy savings like this are achieved through the two main pillars of Passive House design;

1. super insulation of the building fabric to minimise heat loss, and 2. maximising free heat gains through passive solar techniques and optimal orientation of the house as a whole.

The overall effect of a Passive House will be to greatly reduce energy consumption and thus carbon emissions and in doing so will lead to your home achieving the best possible’ A’ rating on its BER certificate. Any additional costs incurred during the construction of the house in providing a superinsulated and airtight home with adequate heat recovery ventilation is likely to be rapidly paid back through energy savings especially as oil prices rise.

To meet the performance standards required to be considered a passive house, the annual net heating requirement must be less than 15 kilowatt hours per square meter of living space per year. To put this in perspective a standard house built in accordance with the 2007 building regulations in Ireland would typically have an energy consumption value of 100kWh/m2 per annum or even more. This figure is more than six times the passive house standard of just 15kWh/m2 per annum.

The maximum annual energy input for a passive house is set at 42 kWh/m2/yr. The typical; nonpassive house built under the 2007 regulation would be expected to have an annual total energy consumption of about 150 kWh/nl/yr, which is over three and a half times the total energy consumption of the passive house.

It can thus be seen that Passive Houses are extremely efficient in terms of energy consumption and, assuming quality design and workmanship, are still capable of providing high levels of comfort.

In addition to meeting the standards required to be considered “passive”, further investment in wind/solar or geothermal technology has seen examples where the energy consumption of a house can be negative with a net energy output.

1. Turn Down Thermostats

The reasons for this are worth a whole article on their own but turning your thermostat down by just one degree will make very little difference to your comfort and a big difference to your cost and carbon footprint.

2. Switch OFF the lights and other appliances!

OK, lights aren’t the biggest consumers of electricity BUT they are the electrical appliances that are left on for the longest time in any house. A 100w bulb left on unecessarily for 2 hours a day will use the same amount of electricity in a week as the average kettle boiling non stop for 30 whole minutes. In a year thats the same as a kettle boiling for 26 hours.
Other appliances when left on standby can consume similar amounts of electricity.

3. Close Curtains at Night

This seems kind of obvious but when the temperature drops significantly at night, a considerable amount of heat is lost through the glass (even if it’s double/triple glazed). If you close blinds AND curtains as early as possible in the evening, you help to retain this heat and lessen the burden on your heating appliances.

4. Position fridges & freezers in cool places – away from heaters and direct sunlight

The less burden you put on the appliance’s cooling system, the less elctricity it will use. Also, always make sure that the doors are sealing correctly so warm air is not leaking into the appliance.

5. Fix leaking taps

If a hot tap has a drip, however slow, then the flow is causing cold water to enter your hot water cylinder unnecessarily lowering the temperature.
If you live in a house with its own pumped water source then leaking cold taps also cause energy costs as the pump must run more often.

6. Use timers for hot water and/or heating

If you have timers on your hot water or heating systems, USE THEM!
The amount of energy wasted heating rooms, houses or water when there is no need can be huge.

None of the above tips is ground-breaking, nor will it improve the rating given by a  BER Assessor , however every small step can add up to a large saving over a full winter. If you improve your energy consumption at home by cutting out energy wastage, you will benefit even more from changes that do affect BER ratings such as insulation, efficient boilers etc.

Building Energy Ratings (BER) will become even more important if these measures are introduced.

With the tax expected to be levied on all carbon based fuels, the insulation and energy efficiency of each home or commercial premises will have a direct effect on the amount of the carbon tax paid. Fuel consumption can be reduced by increasing the energy rating of a building.

Home Energy Grants

Now is the perfect time to avail of the home energy grants announced by the government last February to ensure you minimise your carbon tax bill. These Grants require an energy rating to be carried out by a certified BER Assessor before and after the work.  There is an additional grant of €200 available to offset some of the cost of the associated BER assessment.

A key piece of legislation, that sets ambitious emissions targets for the USA, was passed a coule of weeks ago in the House of Representatives by 7 votes ( 219 v 212) and now moves to the floor of the Senate. It’s by no means a done deal but after years of talk, the USA may finally take serious steps to clean its air and cut back on importing a massive 70% of its energy.

Building energy ratings (BER) must form part of the solution if the plan is to be effective and what started in teh EU may soon be seen in across the atlantic.

The requirement was first introduced for new houses in January 2007  that were offered for sale of rent.

Under the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, from which the house will be issued with a Building Energy Rating (BER) Certificate.

The requirement for a BER assessment also applies to people who build their own homes: According to a Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), the body that administers the EPBD in Ireland, “an assessment is also required for any self build house before the occupant moves in.”

The EU Directive requires a BER to be registered for all buildings except for a few exceptions (eg. listed buildings of outstanding architectural or historical importance and outhouses such as barns) that are offered for sale or rental. This also applies to existing rental properties on renewal of a lease or earlier if the tenant requests proof of the building’s rating.

The main focus of the scheme is to group homeowners to avail of large discounts in upgrading their properties.

Over 250 clusters comprising thousands of homeowners in all 26 counties have already been created under the scheme, which was originally piloted in 2008 as part of the pilot phase of the SEI Home Energy Saving Scheme (HES).

€50 Million

Speaking on Tuesday, Minister Lenihan stated this his “Department has made available almost €50m to the HES Scheme for 2009. This is expected to fund in excess of 30,000 home energy upgrades this year alone and generate a large amount of much needed employment in the current economic circumstances.”

“The Home Energy Saving Scheme offers a very attractive commercial opportunity for businesses that assist homeowners with completing insulation and other works under the scheme and in particular those which add value to the transaction” said the Minister.

Aidan Burke of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) welcomed the launch of the scheme saying “CIF is delighted to see the launch of this innovative scheme and sees long term benefits in funding the retrofitting of buildings and creating construction employment. The cluster approach is unique and will create all sorts of synergies of benefit to the customer and contractor alike.”

The Greenloan Scheme enables homeowners to renovate their homes in an organised cluster, save money, help protect the environment, and support Irish employment and Irish manufacturers according to the scheme administrator, Mary Stewart.

BER assessor benefits

Installations like wood pellet boilers, solar hot water systems, and attic and cavity wall insulation are included in the HES scheme which requires a BER assessor to provide a report both before and after the installation. A grant of €200 is also available toward this BER cost under the HES scheme.

Ms Stewart continued “The Greenloan Scheme is different from the SEI Home Energy Saving Scheme in that groups of local residents can form clusters. By pooling together, the costs of works are substantially reduced as bulk works are organised at significant discounts of up to 40%. The only commitment that must be made by homeowners is to have a Building Energy Rating (BER) assessment carried out on their home.”

Cluster participants can include homeowners, Architects, Engineers, Construction Workers, BER Assessors, Gardeners, Plumbers and Electricians.

According to Ms. Stewart: “In advance of carbon taxes and payments to cover the cost of carbon emissions, the Greenloan scheme is providing businesses, homeowners and landlords the ideal opportunity to upgrade their cost base in advance of these additional taxes and reduce the financial burden over the long term.”

Any new scheme that promotes additional participation in the Home energy saving scheme is guaranteed to be welcomed by BER assessors throughout the country. One Cork BER assessor that I spoke to today said that the HES is currently a lifesaver in terms of providing work so a new scheme to further promote it is very welcome.

Web directories

The cost neutrality of the measure is now thrown into doubt ( it was claimed that the £9bn cost would be offset by £11.79 billion in savings resulting from the scheme) and it is likely that the consumer will have to foot the bill.

Smart Meters are advanced meters that identify consumption in more detail than current meters and communicate the information to the elctricity or gas provider for billing and planning purposes. The meters offer consumers the opportunity to manage their consumption to reduce the cost and in theory reduce marginal consumption during peak demand. However, if the Ernst & Young report is correct, many UK consumers could see bills rise even if they use their energy more efficiently.

In September 2008, in Ireland, the Green Party’s Energy Minister Eamon Ryan launched the first phase of a plan to roll out smart meters across the country and 60,000 consumers were invited to take part in the initial roll out.

It is not clear as yet whether smart meters will be a factor that is to be taken into account by BER assessors when assessing a property for energy efficiency. When asked today, a BER assessor in Cork suggested that the Smart meter is as much a tool to assist in improving consumer behaviour as an enhancement to the energy efficiency of the property.

Name: Kevin O’Driscoll 
Location: NEA Cork
Mardyke Street,Skibbereen,Co. Cork
and
Acorn Business Campus,Mahon Industrial Park, Blackrock, Cork

Expiry of qualification: 31/Dec/2009
Phone: 028 51591 or 021 461 4293

If you are a qualified BER assessor with SEI certification and would like to be listed in this directory, please contact us at infober-directory.com

The global energy market is expected to be worth over €950bn by 2010 Green Enterprise task force will comprise leaders in the green-energy area such as Eddie O’Connor, former head of Airtricity and now chief executive of Mainstream Renewable Power; Richard Kennedy,  Kedco Power; Martin Eves, Envirogrind; and Dr Rosheen McGuckian of NTR.