The German-Irish Chamber of Commerce hosted a study group to Germany last month to examine the energy efficiency of buildings there.

 With Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown making passive house or equivalent energy efficiency standards mandatory for all new builds in a historic vote, the German-Irish Chamber of Industry & Commerce’s Passive House and Energy Efficiency Conference and trade mission is expected to be more relevant than ever.

This issue’s selection features ultra low energy buildings from Mexico, Germany, New Zealand and Italy, and illustrates how widely the energy efficiency specification can vary in different climate zones.

Last week, the German-Irish Chamber of Commerce showcased five Irish low energy building projects that incorporated German energy effiiciency technology. The projects include a certified passive house, a radiant heating ceiling system, and two CHP units. 

The Passive House Institute has certified two new windows and a new skylight as suitable for use in passive house buildings in cold climates. 

Following on from my post on a two-week trip to Germany to study low energy building under the Phase Programme, I sent some questions to Torsten Windmueller, a timber engineer at Kompetenz Zentrum Holzbau & Ausbau, a centre of excellence for timber frame construction, to gauge his thoughts on the differences between building standards in Germany and Ireland.

In this dispatch, Darragh McKiernan, a graduate of Sustainable Energy at Cork Institute of Technology, reflects on a two-week visit to south Germany to study energy-efficient building.

The passive house standard may be growing in popularity, but the UK could struggle to follow Germany’s lead and build large numbers of passive homes because of its different social, political and financial drivers and general attitudes, according to a report published by the NHBC Foundation.

As the January 2006 deadline for implementation of the EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings draws ever nearer, the Irish Government has spelt out its plans to delay the across the board introduction of building energy ratings until 2009. But how does this compare to other EU Member States?