Overview: As the Passive House revolution proceeds in Massachusetts, how are the outcomes being felt in the building and utility industries?
Presentation 1: Passive House is Shaping the Housing Stock in Massachusetts
Massachusetts is a leader in code requirements for Passive House, and a study of housing production and permitting in communities that have adopted Passive House codes established that production remains robust after code adoption. There does not need to be a tradeoff between Passive House code requirements and housing affordability. Instead, Passive House can be part of a comprehensive state affordability strategy, one that encourages housing development while also bringing down energy costs for owners, occupants, and all ratepayers.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify Passive House code requirements in Massachusetts and how they have been designed to maximize effectiveness through voluntary adoption by municipalities, a focus on the most favorable building typologies, and a supportive ecosystem of training and incentives.
- Describe the impact of Passive House code requirements on housing production in Massachusetts through real data from communities that have adopted these requirements.
- Explore how to track, measure, analyze housing production and benefits and drawbacks of different approaches to doing so.
- Analyze long-term projected impacts of Passive House adoption in Massachusetts based on initial experiences of housing production.
Presentation 2: Mass Adoption of Passive House can Deliver Grid-Level Savings
Passive House is undersold. The scope of the value proposition typically presented – the value to the building, though valid and worthwhile, misses a much larger value proposition. That is, if we “zoom out” and examine, at a utility scale, how Passive House radically reduces both heating and cooling peaks, we would see that Passive House helps us avoid expensive electric grid upgrades that would otherwise be required. We need to shine a bright spotlight on this value and demonstrate that mass adoption of Passive House unlocks grid (and by extension ratepayer) savings.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe the major difference of grid demand and passive survivability between Passive House and BAU at peak conditions at both individual building level and at grid level.
- Analyze electric grid utilization before/after space heating electrification in scenarios of BAU vs mass adoption of Passive House.
- Investigate examples of mass adoption of Passive House that is already underway.
- Explore policy tactics Massachusetts used to help advance mass adoption, including pairings of Passive House policy with attention to EV managed charging infrastructure and adoption and utilization of new pathways in the national electric code.
CEUs:
Upon completion of all modules a Certificate of Attendance will be automatically issued for AIA & PHI credit. Please self report to both AIA & PHI using the codes provided.
