Intelligent Energy Europe COMMUNICATION TOWARDS PUBLIC AUTHORITIES FINAL REPORT SEMINAR FOR PUBLIC AUTHORITIES 17. 4. 2009, FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY
Title Final report Seminar for public authorities, 17. 4. 2009, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Author Jan Bárta, Centrum pasivního domu, Czech Republic Supporting documents Editor Centrum pasivního domu Údolní 33, 602 00 Brno info@pasivnidomy.cz www.pasivnidomy.cz t +420 511 111 810 May 2009 Intelligent Energy Europe 2/10
Content CONTENT...3 1. INTRODUCTION...4 2. INFORMATION ABOUT THE SEMINAR...5 2.1. PARTICIPANTS OVERWIEV...5 2.2. SEMINAR OVERVIEW...6 2.2.1. Plenary session of the International Passive House Conference 2009... 6 2.2.2. Joint visit of the exhibition... 6 2.2.3. Excursion... 6 2.2.4. Forum: How do we mainstream passive houses... 6 2.3. DOCUMENTATION...8 3. CONCLUSION...9 4. ANNEXES...10 Intelligent Energy Europe 3/10
1. Introduction The housing market in most countries is highly regulated. This poses a substantial barrier for innovative building concepts, especially for passive and very low energy houses and technologies. As the housing market is a very sensitive political issue, public authorities (officials as well as politicians) behave very "conservative", meaning that they tend to keep regulation to protect the public from unreliable technologies. The aim of the seminar for public authorities wass to inform about passive and very low energy house standards and latest developments with regard to market diffusion. The goal was to put together at least two participants (politicians, stakeholders etc.) from each partner country. Compared to the project, only one-day seminar was organised, including the excursion to passive houses in the city of Frankfurt. This seminar was supported in the framework of the IEE project PASS-NET. Intelligent Energy Europe 4/10
2. Information about the seminar The seminar was organized in cooperation with Passivhaus Institut in Frankfurt as a part of the International conference on passive houses on 17 th April 2009. This solution was offered by the Passivhaus Institut to take advantage of the biggest conference on this field to appeal on the politicians and stakeholders. The seminar was ideally supported also by the Mayor of the city of Frankfurt. All the partners have invited politicians and stakeholders by: sending the invitation letter (translated into national language) per email telephone calls personally Finally, more then 1400 people were invited, but only 43 persons participated on the seminar (expected 150). The most common reasons for refusing to attend were: financial crisis (cutting down the costs, not allowing travelling abroad) lack of time lack of interest on international point of view conference about passive houses in Sweden Easter holidays 2.1. Participants overwiev invited promised attended (signed) Austria 60 5 3 Belgium 110 10 6 Croatia 30 1 1 Czech Republic 21 13 6 Germany 1100 3 1 Romania 350 3 0 Slovenia 8 0 0 Slovakia 86 3 3 Sweden 22 0 0 United Kingdom 0 0 Estonia 3 3 Hungary 1 1 France 1 1 TOTAL 1404 25 (43) Intelligent Energy Europe 5/10
2.2. Seminar overview 2.2.1. Plenary session of the International Passive House Conference 2009 After the official invitation all the participants took part in the plenary session of the 14. International Passive House Conference for the speech of Wolfgang Feist. 2.2.2. Joint visit of the exhibition After the plenary session the participants visited the exhibition with components and services for passive houses. The aim of this part was to show that there are already a lot of components available on the market. Main focus during the visit was on: informative exhibition about the components and principles of passive houses, made by Hessisches Ministerium für Umwelt, Energie, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz windows for passive houses ventilation systems for passive houses thermal insulation with focus on innovative technologies (vacuum insulated panels etc.) 2.2.3. Excursion The next part of the seminar was the excursion into two buildings: primary school in the district Frankfurt-Riedberg (finished in 2004) renovation of multi-family house in Rotlintstraße (in progress) 2.2.4. Forum: How do we mainstream passive houses By the end of the seminar the open forum took place. The participants informed about state of the art and further development in each country. Belgium Passive house are well supported by subsidies on local, regional and national level by the combination of direct subsidies and tax reduction. Germany Passive houses are traditionally supported by KfW (loans), the main topic is retrofitting using passive house principles and further education of the specialists (architects, designers etc.). The public authorities are more and more aware of the economical advantages of energy efficiency. Cities (Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig, ) have made a decision to build new buildings in passive houses standard and renovate according to the passive house principles. Intelligent Energy Europe 6/10
Slovenia Public sector is still ignoring energy savings including passive houses, there is also lack of experts. The training is necessary, it could be also made in foreign language by the foreign experts. The calculation tool PHPP can be used with limits because of problems with climate data and missing translation). Czech Republic The new subsidies were launched in April 2009 with the support for passive houses (220 000 CZK per house) for dwellings. The subsidies are financed by CO 2 emission trading. The global goal is energy savings in dwellings (renovation, passive houses and renewable energy sources). EU funding is available only for public buildings. Public authorities are more and more interested in energy savings and are trying to take inspiration from abroad (Austria, Germany). Austria Public authorities should be the first movers, as the are not developers making money. The public sector has to calculate with longer terms (20 years or similar). Public authorities must show, that passive houses are the normal standard. It is absolutely necessary to put away the popular prejudice against passive houses communication towards both public and professionals. There are excellent examples of approach of public authorities towards passive houses (Vorarlberg, Wels, Wienna, ). Slovakia There are no subsidies for passive houses in Slovakia. The subsidies would help, but this is not the main topic in Slovakia. Maybe some tax reduction might be suitable solution, but has to be in accordance with EU rules. Romania There is only one passive house finished in Romania, there is also lack of legislation. It would help to build pilot passive houses. Croatia There is need to persuade public authority to stop ignoring energy efficiency while using the money available from UNDP. There should be a network established. United Kingdom The government is focusing on saving CO 2 emission, but not focusing primary on energy efficiency. Intelligent Energy Europe 7/10
2.3. Documentation Delegation from nine European countries in Frankfurt during the international conference on passive houses Elementary school in Riedberg, Author: Architekten 4a Delegation from nine European countries in Frankfurt in front of Riedberg school Delegation from nine European countries in Frankfurt in front of Riedberg school Delegation from the Czech Republic: Rut Bízková (Deputy Minister of Environment) Petr Štěpánek (director of the State Environmental Fund) Lenka Vrtíšková (Ministry of Environment) Refurbishment of block of flats in Rotlintstraße, Author: faktor10 GmbH Intelligent Energy Europe 8/10
3. Conclusion Despite lower number of participants, the seminar was according to the reaction of the participants successful and useful, especially the excursion to the school in Frankfurt- Riedberg, and the discussion at the end of the seminar. According to the experiences from this event we would recommend to follow following points: events on national (or even regional) level are more attractive for politicians and stakeholders invitation should not be centralised (EU level), personal invitation is recommended Intelligent Energy Europe 9/10
4. Annexes Annex 1 Annex 2 Annex 3 Programme of the seminar in English Model invitation letter in English List of participants Intelligent Energy Europe 10/10
Programme of the seminar Friday, April 17 th, 2009 8:30 Herbert Greisberger, ÖGUT Invitation 9:00 Plenary session of the 13 th International Conference on Passive houses 10:00 Joint visit of the exhibition with a guide (Franz Freundorfer, Passivhauskreis Rosenheim) 11:15 Wolfgang Feist, Passivhaus Institut Darmstadt Passive house principles, state of the art 12:00 Lunch 13:00 Excursion with a lecture in the house School in Riedberg new building (Axel Bretzke, Hochbauamt Frankfurt) Refurbishment of an apartment block Rotlindstrasse (Jürgen Braun, ABG Frankfurt Holding, GmbH.) 16:00 Forum: How do we mainstream passive houses: Invited: representative of the European Commission Manuella Rotmann, member of city council, Frankfurt am Main Werner Neumann, Leiter des Energiereferats, Frankfurt am Main Axel Bretzke, Hochbauamt Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main Wolfgang Feist, Passivhaus Institut Darmstadt PASS-NET partners chairman: Herbert Greisberger, ÖGUT 17:00 End of the seminar Intelligent Energy Europe
Place, date Dear Mrs./Mr., As an important stakeholder in your country we have the pleasure of inviting you to the seminar and dialogue An introduction to Passivhaus for public officials, which will take place on April 17 th 2009 in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, as a part of the biggest International conference on Passivhaus 2009. According to the EU s Action Plan, building energy demand should be reduced by 20 % by 2020. Achieving the 20% reduction objective will help reduce the EU's impact on climate change and dependence on fossil fuel imports. It will also boost industrial competitiveness, increase exports of new technologies and will have positive benefits in terms of employment. The savings made will, moreover, offset the investments put into innovative technologies. The Passivhaus standard offers the most effective way of fulfilling this goal. Not only new buildings, but also buildings refurbished using Passivhaus principles, use only one-tenth of the energy of new buildings designed to conventional standards. Moreover, this concept delivers the highest indoor air quality. The city of Frankfurt am Main has increased of its commitment to Passivhaus by its agreeing to construct all new public buildings and public refurbishments to this standard. In recent years, large numbers of Passivhaus buildings have been built in Frankfurt. Other projects include refurbishments using Passivhaus components to existing school buildings and kindergartens. The seminar is organized as part of the 7 th framework IEE project PASS-NET. During a one day event it will bring together important stakeholders from PASS-NET partner countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Rumania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. PASS-NET is a network of 10 European countries launched in Autumn 2007 to promote the Passivhaus standard as a way of delivering cost-effective, low energy and low carbon buildings. One of our core activities is to work closely with policy-makers and to provide them with opportunities to meet other national and regional governments who have already adopted Passivhaus. This event gives you an opportunity to learn about the latest advances in low energy building trends and draw from the experiences of other member countries how they have tackled raising their standards, the problems they have experienced, the solutions they have found. We look forward to meeting you With kind regards your name your organisation Intelligent Energy Europe
Programme of the seminar Friday, April 17 th, 2009 8:30 Herbert Greisberger, ÖGUT Invitation 9:00 Plenary session of the 13 th International Conference on Passive houses 10:00 Joint visit of the exhibition with a guide (Franz Freundorfer, Passivhauskreis Rosenheim) 11:15 Wolfgang Feist, Passivhaus Institut Darmstadt Passive house principles, state of the art 12:00 Lunch 13:00 Excursion with a lecture in the house School in Riedberg new building (Axel Bretzke, Hochbauamt Frankfurt) Refurbishment of an apartment block Rotlindstrasse (Jürgen Braun, ABG Frankfurt Holding, GmbH.) 16:00 Forum: How do we mainstream passive houses: Invited: representative of the European Commission Manuella Rotmann, member of city council, Frankfurt am Main Werner Neumann, Leiter des Energiereferats, Frankfurt am Main Axel Bretzke, Hochbauamt Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main Wolfgang Feist, Passivhaus Institut Darmstadt PASS-NET partners chairman: Herbert Greisberger, ÖGUT 17:00 End of the seminar Intelligent Energy Europe