What is the difference between Passive House Classic, Plus or Premium?

In this post I tell you the differences between certifying a Classic, Plus or Premium passive house.

In case you still don’t know us, let me introduce our studio: we’re ERA architects, the English speaking green architecture studio to call in Barcelona.
Actually, I’m Esther Rovira, an architect in Barcelona and a passive house designer for new sustainable builds and big green renovations in Barcelona and Catalonia.
In this post you’ll find all the essentials from our professional point of view.
I hope this helps you!

Let’s start!

Passive House Classic
Firsltly we have Passive House Classic. It is a certified Passive House that meets the following Passivhaus Institut standards for temperate-warm climate:

  • heating demand <15kWh/m2a or load <10W/m2
  • cooling demand <17kWh/m2a or load <10W/m2
  • primary load in electricity of 60kWh/m2a
  • hermetic housing (no leaks) n50<0.6
  • air renewal 0.33Wh/m3k

Passive House Plus
Secondly we can talk about Passive House Plus. It is a certified Passive House that meets the previous Passivhaus Institut standards for temperate-warm climates in addition to improving:

  • primary load in electricity of 45kWh/m2a (electronic devices that consume less)
  • generate renewable primary energy of 60kWh/m2a (for example by adding photovoltaic panels)

Premium Passive House
Thirdly we have the Premium one. It is a certified Passive House that meets the previous Passivhaus Institut standards for temperate-warm climates in addition to improving:

  • primary load in electricity of 30kWh/m2a (electronic devices that consume less)
  • generate renewable primary energy of 120kWh/m2a (for example by adding photovoltaic panels)

 

My professional recommendation:
In our Architecture studio in Barcelona we recommend at least certifying your Classic passive house.
In this way you can easily certify the generation of renewable energy if in the future you dare to place photovoltaic panels or wind energy.
Beware that the Passive House Institut is changing the parameters to adapt comfort to global warming!

You may also be interested in:
Our other post: Other Comfort criteria for your home

 

Hope this is helpful!
Best of luck on this adventure.
See you on the next post,

 

Founder of ERA architects 

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