A Passive House Plus is simply a passive house plus renewable energy.  A simple passive house (PH “classic” is the term used by the Passive House Institute) uses about 90% less energy for heating or colling than a typical home.  This is  measured in kilowatt hours  per square meter per year (kWh/m2/yr).  A classic PH cannot exceed 15 kWh/m2/yr for space heating, and 60 kWh total energy for all purposes (domestic hot water and appliances being the primary demands).  A PH plus simply uses renewable energy to get to the “net zero” level.

McDonald passive house is in the “plus” category on paper.  This is slightly misleading in that its renewable generation is due for an upgrade, which will happen in 2023.  The reason?  One system that was installed failed to live up to its advertised promise and had to taken out.  (More on this later) but we are compensating for it with more photovoltaic solar production (PV).

As it stands, we are generating about 6 megawatts per year and heating our water using an air-source heat pump.  Our upgrade will take us over 10 MW.

Check here For more on Passive House criteria.