Speakers at the Building Energy Exchange (BE-Ex) event, ‘Multifamily Passive House: Connecting Performance to Financing’ make you think twice before claiming it costs more to make your building sustainable. Read on for key takeaways from the event.
Speakers
- Atalia Howe, Manager of Sustainability Programs, Community Preservation Corporation
- Jon Braman, Executive Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, Bright Power
- Jen Leone, Chief Sustainability Officer, NYC HPD
- Eric Bluestone, Partner, Bluestone Organization
- Mark Ginsberg, Partner, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects
- Joanna Grab, Senior Sustainability Consultant, Steven Winter Associates
What is Passive House?
A set of standards requiring thoughtful design and quality control during construction to attain rigorous levels of energy performance. Principles include: airtightness, continuous insulation, thermal bridge free construction, high performance doors and windows, energy recovery ventilation, appropriately sized HVAC, and quality control via testing and certification.
Why Passive House?
Building to the Passive House standard reduces operational costs, which can offset incremental costs of construction and create ongoing cash flow. Benefits include utility cost saving, avoidance of carbon penalties and regulations, construction risk reduction, excellent indoor air quality and occupant health, superior comfort, climate resilience, and reliability.
Connecting Performance to Financing
While there are many benefits, we cannot ignore that fact that developers face numerous barriers adopting Passive House standards. Some obstacles include: limited access to financing because of the perceived first cost increase; limited data to prove operational savings; the inability to quantify value of non-energy benefits; and lack of methodology for underwriting these specific deals.
The research team established objectives to demystify Passive House Developments:
- Objective 1: Provide a framework to compare data from a study group and control groups.
- Objective 2: Compare site Energy Use Intensity between the study and control groups.
- Objective 3: Compare carbon emissions and financial implications of carbon regulations.
- Objective 4: Calculate operational cost savings.
- Objectives 5 & 6: Demonstrate a methodology for underwriting incremental first costs and operational savings.
Knowledge is powerful. As we learn from the past examples, research supports that Passive House is an effective standard to maximize energy efficiency and carbon savings, recognizing value benefits that can be leveraged in underwriting deals. High-performing buildings can yield savings that increase NOI and offset incremental first costs of constriction. These Passive House buildings can be cost-competitive to construct and operate and can have great benefits on building within the affordable housing sector. As we invest in the future, we look to expand the database of sustainable tools to educate lenders and developers to make informed and conscious decisions to build sustainably.